The Ingoldsby Legends; Or Mirth & Marvels
London: J.M. Dent & Co., 1907. Rackham, Arthur. First Edition. Hardcover. First trade edition with additional Rackham illustrations on enlarged paper, quarto size, 568 pp., in original dust jacket. Near fine / very good +. Item #17041019
This book was first published in 1898 with only twelve illustrations, this being the first trade edition of the newly enlarged version of 1907, which had many new illustrations. British illustrator Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) is credited with renewing interest in book illustration at a vital moment of advances in printing technology. The subtle colours and thin feral lines were unlike anything that had come before, as if plucked from the fog of a wild imagination, breathing new life into the whole of children's book illustration. The somewhat grotesque quality of Rackham's figures are perfectly suited for the metrical myths, legends, and ghost stories written by Richard Harris Barham (1788-1845), an English clergyman who is best known by his pen name Thomas Ingoldsby.
___DESCRIPTION: Publisher's olive-green buckram with gilt pictorial stamping and lettering to the front and spine, top-edge gilt, fore- and tail-edges uncut, illustrated olive endpapers, title in red and olive-green within pictorial border, richly illustrated with twenty-four colour plates mounted on heavy olive paper with captioned tissue guards, twelve full-page tinted illustrations, and sixty-six drawings within the text; quarto size (10 1/8" by 7 7/8"), pagination: [i-viii] ix-xix 1-549, reprint of the 1898 edition on enlarged paper with additional illustrations, first trade thus. With the scarce original brown dust jacket printed in dark-green, the front panel with an upper banner and lettering which mirror the binding, price on spine of 15/- net, back panel with publisher's ad for "Some Acceptable Presents" which includes Palgrave's "Golden Treasury" illustrated by R. Anning Bell and two others, both flaps blank.
___CONDITION: A near fine copy, the cloth binding clean, the gilt on both front and spine bright and unrubbed, the corners straight with a faint hint of rubbing, a strong, square text block with solid hinges, internally bright and free of prior owner markings, the plates all present as called for; foxing limited to a couple of faint spots on the title-page, minor slight shelf wear at edges (none so much as to cause fraying to the cloth), overall a near fine copy. The dust jacket is quite uncommon and suffers only from some minor chipping to joints and corners (with old prior owner tape repair to these on verso), none obscuring the text, overall very bright and clean; very good.
___CITATION: Latimore and Haskell, p. 30; Riall, p. 83.
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Price: $900.00