Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures (Signed limited edition)

London: William Heinemann, [1913].

With forty-four mounted color plates including "Cupid's Alley"

(Item #6520) Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures (Signed limited edition). Arthur Rackham.

Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures (Signed limited edition)

London: William Heinemann, [1913]. First edition. Number 341 of 1030 copies, signed by Rackham on the limitation page. A nearly Fine copy maintaining all 44 colored plates on brown paper with lettered tissue-guards. Bound in burgundy crushed red morroco with gilt dentelles and spine compartments with raised bands, burgundy endpapers, with original publisher's cloth cover and spine bound in at the rear. Minor wear to extremities and some scratches on rear board. Top edge of text block gilt, rest uncut. Interior clean.

Rackham’s Book of Pictures is a collection of illustrations that fully encapsulates the artist’s classic style: From goblins and fairies to mystical atmospheric landscapes, there's an image to suit everyone's tastes in this survey. The introduction by Arthur Quiller-Couch sets out the book's contents—not a biography but a celebration of Rackham's artistry. Rackham initially approached J. M. Barrie to write the introduction, but due to scheduling conflicts Barrie turned down the offer and Arthur Quiller-Couch was found as a replacement. Not only did he admire “Rackham's work; he also thoroughly understood a child's instinctive longing for the imaginative and fanciful. 'To this instant, constant, intellectual need of childhood no one in our day,' he wrote, 'has ministered so bountifully or so whole-heartedly as Mr. Rackham.' And Quiller-Couch was happy, too, in associating the random, impressionistic nature of much of the Book of Pictures with 'the wayward visions that tease every true artist's mind, while he bends over the day's work'" (Hudson).

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.

Riall 118.
Near Fine (Item #6520)

Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures (Signed limited edition)
Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures (Signed limited edition)
Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures (Signed limited edition)
Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures (Signed limited edition)
Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures (Signed limited edition)
Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures (Signed limited edition)
Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures (Signed limited edition)
Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures (Signed limited edition)
Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures (Signed limited edition)
Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures (Signed limited edition)