Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World -
Jonathan Swift, Arthur Rackham (illustrator)
1909 - J. M. Dent &, London - Number 76 of 750 signed copies on large paper
One of the world’s greatest stories by one of its greatest satirists.
A large superior and beautifully produced example of the deluxe large paper limited edition signed and magically illustrated by Arthur Rackham, including thirteen tipped-in colour plates (one more than the standard edition), two full page black and white line drawings, four chapter headings and twenty seven tailpieces.
Housed in a custom red cloth clamshell case, internally padded and lined in red silk, with gilt lettering.
‘Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.’
An iconic and surrealist narrative, and a savage parody on man and his institutions. On publication it was described in a letter from English poet John Gay to Swift as being ‘universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery’ Jonathan Swift (1667-1745): ‘Anglo-Irish author, who was the foremost prose satirist in the English language. Besides the celebrated novel Gulliver’s Travels (1726), he wrote such shorter works as A Tale of a Tub (1704) and A Modest Proposal (1729).’
Arthur Rackham (1867-1939), English illustrator and water-colourist. One of the foremost and most productive of the Edwardian illustrators, with a preference for illustrating books of a mystical, magic or legendary background. Aided by advances in colour printing at the beginning of the 20th century, his imaginative eye saw all forms with the eyes of childhood and created a world that was half reassuring and half frightening, whilst adding a delightfully humorous flourish to many of his illustrations, although he can descend into darker depths as seen for Wagner and Edgar Allen Poe.
First issued with Rackham’s illustrations in 1900, this 1909 edition added numerous additional colour plates, reworked and added more line illustrations, and in this, the limited edition format, there was one more colour plate than the trade edition - ‘The Yahoos’ (facing page 256).
References: Encyclopedia Britannica, Web. House, Dictionary of British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists 424. Latimore & Haskell, Arthur Rackham: A Bibliography, 32.
Thick quarto (book size 29.6x22.6cm), pp. [2] xv [1] 291 [1]. Three plates are bound in at a slight variance to their page designations on the List of Illustrations (as published). In publisher’s cream buckram cloth, gilt lettering to spine, upper board with gilt lettering and stylised publisher’s emblem, top edge gilt, others untrimmed, white endpapers with purple and pink highlights and gilt vignettes of characters, four rose coloured silk ties. Condition: Fine, very light foxing to frontis tissue-guard, one silk tie frayed, in very good cloth, slightly discoloured, with fine clamshell case. Ref: 112131 Price: HK$ 19,000
A large superior and beautifully produced example of the deluxe large paper limited edition signed and magically illustrated by Arthur Rackham, including thirteen tipped-in colour plates (one more than the standard edition), two full page black and white line drawings, four chapter headings and twenty seven tailpieces.
Housed in a custom red cloth clamshell case, internally padded and lined in red silk, with gilt lettering.
‘Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.’
An iconic and surrealist narrative, and a savage parody on man and his institutions. On publication it was described in a letter from English poet John Gay to Swift as being ‘universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery’ Jonathan Swift (1667-1745): ‘Anglo-Irish author, who was the foremost prose satirist in the English language. Besides the celebrated novel Gulliver’s Travels (1726), he wrote such shorter works as A Tale of a Tub (1704) and A Modest Proposal (1729).’
Arthur Rackham (1867-1939), English illustrator and water-colourist. One of the foremost and most productive of the Edwardian illustrators, with a preference for illustrating books of a mystical, magic or legendary background. Aided by advances in colour printing at the beginning of the 20th century, his imaginative eye saw all forms with the eyes of childhood and created a world that was half reassuring and half frightening, whilst adding a delightfully humorous flourish to many of his illustrations, although he can descend into darker depths as seen for Wagner and Edgar Allen Poe.
First issued with Rackham’s illustrations in 1900, this 1909 edition added numerous additional colour plates, reworked and added more line illustrations, and in this, the limited edition format, there was one more colour plate than the trade edition - ‘The Yahoos’ (facing page 256).
References: Encyclopedia Britannica, Web. House, Dictionary of British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists 424. Latimore & Haskell, Arthur Rackham: A Bibliography, 32.
Thick quarto (book size 29.6x22.6cm), pp. [2] xv [1] 291 [1]. Three plates are bound in at a slight variance to their page designations on the List of Illustrations (as published). In publisher’s cream buckram cloth, gilt lettering to spine, upper board with gilt lettering and stylised publisher’s emblem, top edge gilt, others untrimmed, white endpapers with purple and pink highlights and gilt vignettes of characters, four rose coloured silk ties. Condition: Fine, very light foxing to frontis tissue-guard, one silk tie frayed, in very good cloth, slightly discoloured, with fine clamshell case. Ref: 112131 Price: HK$ 19,000