AESOP'S FABLES

London: William Heinemann, 1912. No. 1,035 of 1,450 Copies SIGNED by Rackham. 280 x 222 mm. (11 x 8 3/4"). xxix, [1], 223, [1] pp.A New Translation by V. S. Vernon Jones. Introduction by G. K. Chesterton.
VERY ATTRACTIVE GREEN CRUSHED MOROCCO, GILT, BY BAYTUN-RIVIERE (stamp-signed on rear turn-in), covers bordered by gilt fillet, front cover with gilt ornament replicating the title page vignette, raised bands, spine compartments with gilt fillet frame, gilt lettering, gilt-ruled turn-ins, marbled endpapers all edges gilt. With 20 full-page black and white illustrations, numerous illustrations in the text, and 13 COLOR PLATES, as called for, each mounted on heavy brown stock and protected by lettered tissue guard. Printed on Large Paper. Hudson, p. 169; Latimore and Haskell, pp. 38-39. ◆Front cover with one-inch irregularity in leather (scarcely noticeable and apparently part of the original skin), faint browning or very light foxing to pages adjacent to (acidic) stock used for plate mounts, a few other spots of foxing, three color plates with slight crease to one corner, but still quite an appealing copy in an unworn binding.

In a fine binding by an eminent English workshop, this is Rackham's take on the famous fables, populated with charming animals anthropomorphized to just the right degree, along with wistful maidens, anicent crones, and some seriously sinister trees. Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) studied art at Lambeth School, where the work of his fellow student Charles Ricketts influenced his development. As Houfe says, soon after Rackham joined the staff of "The Westminster Budget" in 1892, he began concentrating "on the illustration of books and particularly those of a mystical, magic, or legendary background. He very soon established himself as one of the foremost Edwardian illustrators and was triumphant in the early 1900s when color printing first enabled him to use subtle tints and muted tones to represent age and timelessness. Rackham's imaginative eye saw all forms with the eyes of childhood and created a world that was half reassuring and half frightening. His sources were primarily Victorian, and among them are evidently the works of Cruikshank, Doyle, Houghton, and Beardsley, but also the prints of Dürer and Altdorfer." Our binding is the work of a firm created by the merger of two venerable English binderies. Founded in Bath in 1894, the Bayntun bindery has provided beautiful bindings for bibliophiles for more than a century. In 1937, Bayntun acquired the Riviere bindery, which had been in business since 1829, and began signing its bindings "Bayntun-Riviere," as here. It is now the last of the great Victorian trade binderies still in family ownership. This is an easy book to find in the publisher's cloth binding, but it is uncommonly seen in fine morocco, especially when essentially unused, as here..