New Hours and Prayers - Compositions in the style of manuscripts from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. A beautiful undated edition (ca. 1880) from the Gruel and Engelmann house in Paris, the famed Parisian bookbinding workshop founded in 1811 that loved to replicate the old French masters’ designs, and their frequently exhibited works brought them some of France's highest awards. A splendid example made in the manner of a medieval manuscript, with Gothic letters, large initials, and colored text framed in beautiful gold borders and in full color, with floral motifs, drawings with illuminated figures. Featuring 176 chromolithographs mounted on tabs, including the title page, 4 plates are out-of-text and printed in sepia and gold, the rest in decorative compositions around the text. Remarkably each page features a different design. At the end of the book, there are 4 pages intended to note family memories with provenance of this book beginning with Mr. A. W. Green in 1881 gifting it to his daughter and all the way up to 2013 and a great, great, great grandson. The R. Engelmann publisher-printer's mark at the end. Condition: 16mo. 6 1/4" x 5 1/2" - 176 pages, Full leather binding with titles stamped in gilt on the spine, all edges gilt, gilt inner dentelles with gilt endpapers in a fleur de Lys pattern separated by a leather hinge. In near fine condition with toning and foxing to a few interior pages, page 7 is beginning to separate at the hinge and several pages are beginning to separate along the bottom edge.