Seven Original Arthur Rackham Watercolors

by Stephen J. Gertz

[RACKHAM, Arthur, illustrator]. BROWNING, Robert.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham.
London: George G. Harrap & Co., Ltd. [1934].
One of ten specially bound copies containing an original watercolor,
this copy being No. 4.

Between 1931 and 1936, famed book illustrator Arthur Rackham, as gifts to his close friends, specially ordered  nine to eleven copies of the following nine books he illustrated.

[RACKHAM, Arthur, illustrator]. ROSSETTI, Christina.
Goblin Market. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham.
London: George G. Harrap & Co., Ltd. [1933].
One of ten specially bound copies containing an original watercolor,
this copy being No. 7.

1931: The Night Before Christmas
1931: The Compleat Angler
1932: Fairy Tales by Hans Andersen
1932: The King of the Golden River
1933: The Arthur Rackham Fairy Book
1933: Goblin Market
1934: The Pied Piper of Hamelin
1935: Poe’s Tales of Mystery & Imagination
1936: Peer Gynt

[RACKHAM, Arthur, illustrator].
The Arthur Rackham Fairy Book.
A book of old favourites with new illustrations.
London: George G. Harrap & Co., Ltd. [1933].
One of ten special copies containing an original watercolor,
this copy being No. 8.

Rackham had them specially bound by renowned binders Sangorski & Sutcliffe and included an unique original watercolor in each.

[RACKHAM, Arthur, illustrator]. RUSKIN, John.
The King of the Golden River. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham.
London: George G. Harrap & Co., Ltd. [1932].
One of nine specially bound copies with an original watercolor,
this being copy No. 6.  

The limitation leaves were printed on the verso of the half-titles and contain a statement written in ink by the publisher, George H. Harrap: "This edition, which contains an original painting by Arthur Rackham, is limited to nine [or ten] copies of which eight are for sale. George G. Harrap & Co Ltd."

[RACKHAM, Arthur, illustrator]. POE, Edgar Allan.
Tales of Mystery & Imagination. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham.
London: George G. Harrap & Co., [1935].
One of ten special copies containing an original watercolor,
this copy being No. 5.

Including original art  in some copies of books he illustrated was not unusual for Rackham.

RACKHAM, Arthur, illustrator]. IBSEN, Henrik.
Peer Gynt. A Dramatic Poem by Henrik Ibsen.
Illustrated by Arthur Rackham.
London: George G. Harrap & Co., [1936].
One of ten special copies containing an original watercolor,
this copy being No. 7.

Original art, albeit simple pen & ink drawings, can be found, for instance, in trade edition copies of the Heinemann productions of Wagner, The Reingold & The Valkyrie (1910) and Siegfreid & The Twilight of the Gods (1911); and Hodder & Stoughton's signed and limited  edition of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906).

[RACKHAM, Arthur]. RHODES,Thomas.
To The Other Side. With Illustrations by Arthur Rackham & Alfred Bryan.
London: George Philip & Son, 1893.
Rackham's copy, and with an original watercolor by
Rackham with a lengthy inscription by Rackham,
signed and dated 1935.

Rackham's personal copy of Rhodes' To The Other Side (1893) - the first book he illustrated - is graced by a delicate watercolor. Rackham, per usual with his anthropomorphic trees, used his face as model. 

Special copies uniformly bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe.

Because of their rarity and popularity with collectors, copies of Rackham-illustrated books with original art by him are not inexpensive, generally running into low five figures. For the Rackham aficionado they're worth every penny.

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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A Movable Book Feast: The World's Greatest Collection Comes to Auction

by Stephen J. Gertz

The startling resemblance and typical tableau deeply disturbing, I must begin by categorically denying that the terrifying portrait above with its desperate plea for acceptance is of yours truly, reproduced from my high school yearbook.

It is, rather, one of the five color lithographed circus scenes from Only To Say How Do You Do - And Introduce Myself To You (London: Raphael Tuck, c. 1910), one of over 240 volumes from the Landwehr Collection, the world's most remarkable assemblage of movable books in private hands. The collection will be auctioned on November 21, 2011 by Ketterer Kunst in Hamburg. All the books are rare, and scarce in this condition: as good as it gets for toy books that soon turned into confetti in the hands of enthusiastic children.

From: (ABC Book). Das Originelle ABC.
[Nürnberg: G. N. Renner, c. 1835].
First edition. Abecedaire with illustrations in vibrant color.
With 71 hand-colored copperplates. Folio.

John Landwehr is the renowned Dutch collector and bibliographer of emblem books, the author of the standard reference on Dutch color-plate books, an esteemed scholar of the Dutch East India Company, and, not so by the way, one of the world's great collectors of children's literature, with an emphasis on movable books.

From: At the Circus. New York: New York Book Co. [c. 1910].
First edition, from the series 'The Moving Picture Books.'
With 4 color-lithogr. plates with movable elements and
4 illustrations in colors. Orig. half cloth with front board
illus. in colors. Large octavo. Not in the Osborne Collection.

The collection is unique in terms of extensiveness and quality. It documents the history of movable books as well as pop-up, surprise, and transformation books.

From: Aventures extraordinaires de Monsieur de Krac.
Paris: A. Capendu, [c. 1890].
First edition. W ith 5 color-lithogr. plates with movable
elements and 4 illustrations. Orig. half cloth with front
board illus. in colors. Small quarto..

All the books date from the mid-19th through early 20th centuries, and represent the best of English (Dean, E. Nister, and R. Tuck), American (McLoughlin), French (A. Capandu), and German publishers.

From: Playtime Surprises by Clifton Bingham.
London and New York: E. Nister and E. P. Dutton [c. 1900].
First edition, publisher's no. 610. With 6 color-lithogr.
rotating plates and 11 illustrations. Orig. half cloth with
front board illus. in colors. Small quarto.

At this point, I'm just going to get out of the way and let these movables move you.

From: (Cinema-Book).The Little Green Man of the Sea.
London: Brown Novelty Company, [c. 1926].
First edition. A magic narration with convertible illustrations.
With 19 (12 fullpage) illustrations and "Cinemascope" with
blue and red foil. Orig. half cloth with front board illu. in colors.
Small quarto. When not in use the cinemascope glasses can be put away
in the small mounted tuck-in flap on front endpaper.

History of the Three Little Kittens Who Lost Their Mittens.
London: Dean & Sons, [c. 1859].
First edition. With 8 colored lithogr. plates with movable elements.
Orig. half cloth with illus. in color on front board. Small quarto.
Not in the Osborne Collection.

From: Hurra! Hurra! Nun Sind Wir Da! Ein neues bewegliches
Bilderbuch mit hübschen Erzählungen. [Germany, c. 1920].
With 4 color-lithogr. plates with movable elements.
Orig. half cloth with front board illus. in colors. Small quarto.

From: Isn't it Funny.
London, Paris and New York: Raphael Tuck, [c. 1895].
First edition, publisher's no. 1502. With 4 color-lithogr. plates
with movable elements and 7 (4 in color) illustrations.
Orig. half cloth with illus. on front board in colors. Small quarto.
Not in the Osborne Collection.

Zauber- und Verwandlungs-Bilderbuch. [Germany, c.1880].
Transformation picture book. With 42 illustrations, some in colors.
Orig. cardboard illustrated in colors. Small octavo.

From: Howard, J. H., Naughty Girl's & Boy's Magic Transformations.
New York: McLoughlin Bros, [c. 1882].
First edition. With 4 mounted foldable color-lithogr. plates.
Orig. wrapper with front board illu. in colors. Octavo.
Not in the Osborne Collection.

 

Toulouse-Lautrec, H. The Motograph Moving Picture Book.
London: Bliss and Sands 1898.
First edition. With 23 color-lithogr. plates (incl. title) by F. J. Vernaj,
Yorick et al. Orig. half cloth with front board illu. in colors by
H. de Toulouse-Lautrec. Quarto.

 It wouldn't be a collection of movables without the mechanical books of Lothar Meggendorfer. There are an astounding eighty-six Meggendorfer volumes in this collection. Booktryst will devote a separate post to the Landwehr collection of Lothar Meggendorfer next week.

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Images courtesy of Ketterer Kunst, with our thanks.

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Visit The Movable Book Society.

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Of related interest:

Movable Books Pop-Up at the Smithsonian.

Say Hello to the First Talking Book.

Waldo Hunt and Pop-Up Books: A Brief Overview.
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Gettin' Down-ADown-Derry With Walter de la Mare & Dorothy Lathrop

by Stephen J. Gertz

"What are the salient characteristics of childhood? Children, it will be agreed, live in a world peculiarly their own, so much so that it is doubtful if the adult can do more than very fleetingly reoccupy that far-away consciousness. There is, however, no doubt that the world of the grown-up is to children an inexhaustible astonishment and despair. They brood on us. And perhaps it is well that we are not invited to their pow-wows, until, at any rate, the hatchet for the hundredth time is re-buried. 

"Children are in a sense butterflies, though they toil with an almost inconceivable assiduity after life's scanty pollen and nectar, and though, by a curious inversion of the processes of nature, they may become the half-comatose and purblind chrysalides which too many of us poor mature creatures so ruefully resemble. They are not bound in by their groping senses. Facts to them are the liveliest of chameleons. Between their dream and their reality looms no impassable abyss. 

"There is no solitude more secluded than a child's, no absorption more complete, no insight more exquisite and, one might even add, more comprehensive. As we strive to look back and to live our past again, can we recall any joy, fear, hope or disappointment more extreme than those of our childhood, any love more impulsive and unquestioning, and, alas, any boredom so unmitigated and unutterable?" (Walter de la Mare).

The Enchanted Hill.

Walter de la Mare (1873-1956) made sure children were not bored, at least not while reading one of his books especially written for them. Down-ADown-Derry, a collection of fairy verses published in 1922, presents a charming example of his ability to arrest attention and immediately draw little (and big) readers into another world.

Down-adown-derry,
Sweet Annie Maroon,
Gathering daisies
In the meadows of Doone,
Hears a shrill piping,
Elflike and free,
Where the waters go brawling
In rills to the sea;
Singing down-adown-derry.

"Remembered chiefly as a poet, for both adults and children,  de la Mare was fluent, inventive, technically skillful, and unaffected by fashion. In his favorite themes of childhood, fantasy, and the numinous, commonplace objects and events are invested with mystery, and often with an undercurrent of melancholy" (OCEL).

Off the Ground.

In his March 1919 lecture, Rupert Brooke and the Intellectual Imagination, partially quoted above, he asserted that "[children] are contemplatives, solitaries, fakirs, who sink again and again out of the noise and fever of existence and into a waking vision." Children are visionaries, and de la Mare fostered nourishment and gave inspiration to those visions.

Dorothy Lathrop made de la Mare's visions concrete.

Dorothy Pulis Lathrop (1891–1980) was an American author and illustrator of children's books with  more  than  thirty-eight  illustrated  volumes  to  her credit,  published  primarily between  the  years
1919 -1962, with nine issued during the 1930s alone.

Sunk Lyonesse

Lathrop developed a friendship with de la Mare, and ultimately illustrated five of his children's books, including the illustrations for  Crossings (1923), Mr. Bumps (1942), and Bells and Grass (1942).

In 1938 she was awarded the very first Caldecott Medal for her illustrations to Animals in the Bible by Helen Dean Fish.

In 1922, Constable & Co. in London issued Down-ADown-Derry by de la Mare and illustrated with three magnificent full color illustrations and many dramatic and stunning black and white illustrations by Lathrop. It was issued in a limited de luxe edition of 325 copies numbered and signed by the author and bound in full Japanese vellum, pictorially stamped, with the top edge gilt. Constable offered a trade edition in the same year, bound in pictorially stamped blue cloth. The first American edition was issued by Henry Holt in the same year.

Down-adown-derry,
There's snow in the air;
Ice where the lily
Bloomed waxen and fair;
He may call o'er the water,
Cry--cry through the Mill,
But Annie Maroon, alas!
Answer ne'er will;
Singing down-adown-derry.

There, in this last stanza, is the poignant melancholy that de la Mare can capture. Whether male or female, young or old, it makes no difference; winter's onset and the sense of loss and yearning is palpable.
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DE LA MARE, Walter. Down-ADown-Derry. A Book of Fairy Poems by Walter De La Mare with illustrations by Dorothy P. Lathrop. London: Constable & Co., Ltd., [1922]. First edition, Edition De Luxe, limited to 325 large paper copies signed by the author.  Quarto (9 5/8 x 6 3/4 inches; 245 x 170mm.). Three full-page color plates, including frontispiece, with tissue guards. Numerous black and white drawings, many full-page. Top edge gilt, others untrimmed.

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with out thanks.
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Heaven Elf Us: Subversive Images From Elf-World

by Stephen J. Gertz

MEMO

From: DOD, Office of Small Arms Procurement

To: All Military Personnel

Re: Threat Alert

Recent satellite images of a distant land with no latitude or longitude have been thoroughly analyzed. Small arms, as well as legs and everything else, are a specialty of this strange culture of precious beings who toil all day doing nothing but lazing around on leaves and mushroom cap Barcaloungers, gettin' jiggy with it in tulip bowls, talking to birds, and when the winged-ones, members of the Elvian Air Force, are called to service, buzzing around humans, tapping them on the shoulder with a standard-issue PW-16 pixie-wand and offering unsolicited, subversive advice of the teeny fortune-cookie ilk, Elf-Land Roses undermining our troops' morale.

They fuel their decadent lifestyle with Fairy Dust aka, Elvian Flying Powder, adapted as Elvian Marching Powder for the infantry, whose preferred offensive tactic is to crawl inside the pants legs of innocent  citizens, then, using leg hairs as pitons, scale upward, detour the groin, and proceed directly to the ears, where they  swing on loop earrings as if daring young men on the flying trapeze. 

The images confirm earlier sightings at the time considered the fanciful imaginings of adult children, the most significant and celebrated being those found within In Fairyland, a classified report originally written and illustrated by undercover operatives of MI6 and boldly exposed and published for public consumption in London by Longmans, Green, Reader, & Dyer in 1870. 

The perpetrators were illustrator Richard ["Dickie"] Doyle (1824-1883) "nineteen when he joined the staff of Punch, for which he designed the first cover" (Osborne, vol. I, p. 442); he also designed the Punch masthead, used for over a century afterward. His father, John Doyle, was the noted Irish political caricaturist who signed his work, "H.B." 

Doyle collaborated with John Leech, W.C. Stanfield and other artists to co-illustrate three of Charles Dickens' five Christmas books, The Chimes (1844), The Cricket on the Hearth (1845) and The Battle of Life (1846). After the success of In Fairyland he went on to illustrate a string of fantasy-themed books.

The writer, "William Allingham (1824-1889) was an Irish poet who became a friend of Leigh Hunt and was introduced to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood by Coventry Patmore" (Osborne, vol. I, p. 50).

"It is generally felt that Richard Doyle rose to his greatest heights with the graceful clusters of humanized and sentimentalized but endearing little elves he created for In Fairyland. In the case of this book the pictures preceded the text, a situation not uncommon in the history of illustrated children's books.

"The Irish poet William Allingham wrote verses to accompany Doyle's colorful fantasies. Edmund Evans produced the colored engravings; they are among the very finest examples of his work. Doyle's illustrations for In Fairyland were used again, in 1884, to illustrate Princess Nobody, an original fairy tale for children by Andrew Lang. This is the first edition of In Fairyland" (Morgan Library, Early Children's Books).

"Doyle's most sought-after book is the folio, In Fairyland - Pictures from the Elf-World, 1870 (second edition 1875), a masterpiece of book illustration and an outstanding example of the colour printing of the equally well-known Edmund Evans (1826-1905), a craftsman whose work for Walter Crane, Randolph Caldecott, Kate Greenaway, and other[s]... put him at the top of his profession. In Fairyland... is one of the finest books ever produced for children, and from the collector's point of view a most desirable item to add to any library of juvenile works, especially copies in the original green, morocco-grained, full-cloth bindings, pictorially blocked in gold on the front cover..." (Quayle, The Collector's Book of Children's Books, p. 41).

"In Fairyland has 16-colour plates, several of them with more than one subject on a page, and there is not a bad one among them. It was a small folio, with a charming binding, also designed by Doyle, and Edmund Evans surpassed himself in the printing of the blocks..." (Muir, Victorian Illustrated Books, p. 102).

All field officers are requested to be on alert. Copies of In Fairyland in the original pictorially gilt-stamped cloth binding are difficult to find in decent condition. The binding is typically distressed and plates are often heavily spotted and smudged due to age and playroom battlefield conditions.

A rare, fine copy.

The book is a must for all interested in the power of creatures equipped with small arms to charm big readers onto submission.
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DOYLE, Richard (illustrator). ALLINGHAM, William (text). In Fairyland. Pictures from the Elf-World. London: Longmans, Green, Reader, & Dyer, 1870.

First edition, published December 1869 yet post-dated 1870, as typical of British publishing during the 19th century. Folio (14 7/8 x 10 5/8 in; 378 x 269 mm). [8], 31, [1] pp, printed on rectos only. Frontispiece and fifteen wood-engraved plates printed in color by Edmund Evans, many plates with three-four vignettes each. Miscellaneous black and white line illustrations, including title-page.

Green morocco-grained cloth pictorially stamped and lettered in gilt. Elaborately gilt-decorated spine. All edges gilt. Pale yellow-coated end-papers.

Morgan 168.
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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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