Peer Gynt

London: George C. Harrap & Co. Ltd, 1936. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/very good +. Rackham, Arthur. First trade edition, quarto size, 256 pp., with original dust jacket. This volume the first trade edition of this work with the illustrations of Arthur Rackham (1867-1939), an eminent illustrator of many books which often depict fantasy and fairy tale subjects. Rackham contributed illustrations to many popular stories, such as "Cinderella", "Sleeping Beauty", "Alice in Wonderland", and the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Known for his ability to produce both eerie, almost feral trees, goblins, and assorted other ne'er-do-wells while at the same time bringing to life breathtakingly lovely fairies, princesses, and good children, all brought to life by the incredibly talented Arthur Rackham.

___DESCRIPTION: Bound in full brown cloth over boards, gilt decoration and lettering on the front and spine, pictorial endpapers, half-title with decoration in green, title page with small illustration above a decorative border in green, tissue-guarded frontispiece one of the twelve full-colour illustrations bound in throughout, the volume also replete with in-text illustrations and decorations all in black; quarto size (10" by 7 3/4"), pagination: [1-4] 5-256. With the publisher's dust jacket with an original Rackham wrap-around illustration, front flap with a list of "Illustrated Books by Arthur Rackham" and showing the original price of 15/- Net at the bottom, back flap blank.

___CONDITION: Fine, with clean boards utterly without wear, straight corners without rubbing, a strong, square text block with solid hinges, the interior is clean and bright, all illustrations present and each with their lettered tissue guard, and entirely free of prior owner markings; a hint of bumping to the head and tail of the spine, otherwise clean and crisp, in appearance almost as brand new. The unclipped dust jacket better than very good and could almost be deemed near fine, clean and complete, with light overall edgewear (most noticeable at the head and tail of the spine), a few short closed tears and some sunning to the spine.

___CITATIONS: Latimore & Haskell, p. 74, also p. 89 which notes that the dust wrapper "has [an] original drawing across the entire cover, done in red, black and white"; Riall p. 192, which describes the wrapper scene as "the evil king watching as Peer is surrounded by sinister animals and trolls, one holding the goblet."

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