Belle Au Bois Dormant, La [The Sleeping Beauty] -

Paris: L'Edition d'Art H. Piazza & Cie, 1910. Numbered and Signed by the Artist In The Publishers Deluxe Morocco by Durvand A Variant Not Noted by Hughey [DULAC, Edmund, illustrator]. La Belle Au Bois Dormant [The Sleeping Beauty]. Et quelques aures contes de jadis. Préface de Edmund Pilon, Illustrations de Edmund Dulac. Paris: L'Edition d'Art H. Piazza & Cie, (1910). First edition in French, limited to 400 copies signed by the artist, this being copy no. 266. Quarto (11 5/8 x 9 in; 293 x 228 mm). 172, [1, limitation], [1, blank], [3, adv.], [1, blank] pp. With thirty color plates as in the first English limited edition but with grey-green borders, captions in French, and guard sheets as tissue. With an additional four extra head- and tailpieces, four decorated initials and border designs for text and chapter pages, and two small medallions, all printed in grey-green, not found in the first English limited edition. In the publisher's original full crushed brown morocco deluxe binding by Durvand (with elaborate gilt decoration, wrappers bound in). Top edge gilt. Spine very slightly sunned. A fine copy. Includes Le Barbe Bleue (Bluebeard), Cendrillon (Cinderella), and La Belle et la Béte (Beauty and the Beast). A variant not noted by Hughey, numbered and signed as 23x but specially bound as noted in 23z, aa yet in a variant leather color ("green or red"). "[Dulac's] best work...is to be found in The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales. His designs for the title story and 'Cinderella' have ornate eighteenth century settings ...No less ornate and rather more attractive are the eastern scenes conceived by Dulac for 'Bluebeard' and 'Beauty and the Beast'" (Ray, The Illustrator and the Book in England 1790-1914, p. 209). "The most beautiful book ever published at a popular price" (Advert., 1910). "It is all that could be desired" (Illustrated London News, Dec. 3, 1919). Hughey 23x, 23z, aa.