London: Constable & Co., 1919. First edition. One of 575 copies signed by Rackham on the limitation page. A Near Fine copy. Quarto (11 1/4 x 9 inches; 286 x 229 mm.). Sixteen full color tipped-in plates with tissue guards lettered in red, twenty-four black and white drawings. Original vellum backed parchment boards, front and back cover pictorially stamped in gilt, spine lettered in gilt. Small 'bump' to edge of front board.

The delightful copy contains a collection of historic British poems, with sixteen charming medievalizing illustrations by Rackham. "Few of Mr Rackham's work have been more consistently impressed with charm and beauty than his illustrations in colour to Some British Ballads. In them he pictures a succession of fascinating heroines habited in quaint and picturesque costumes, amid surroundings which, though belonging to no definite place or period, are always appropriate and congruous. His heroes are hardly less charming than his heroines, and the scenes in which they are represented constitute a series of fascinating and delightful pictures ... one must feel grateful to Mr Rackham for giving us the prettiest picture book of the season" (The Connoisseur).

Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) is perhaps the most acclaimed and influential illustrator of the Golden Age of Illustration. A prolific artist even from his youth, Rackham got his start as an illustrator working for the Westminster Budget Newspaper (1892). Over the next few years, he took on more and more commissions for children’s books, hitting his career high in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Rackham turned his imaginative pen to every classic—from Shakespeare to Dickens to Poe. Near Fine (Item #6380)