Books

Elegantly bound by the Bayntun Bindery (signed) in full green Morocco with two gilded rectangular boarders on the front and rear boards. Handsomely gilded and decorated spine with red moroccan title label. With lovely gilded floral dentelles. And charming green endpapers featuring stylized leaves on vertical stems. Very clean and tight throughout with slight creasing along the top 3" of the front and rear hinges. All edges gilt. A splendid copy of this extraordinary production. With Fifty-one color plates by Rackham mounted on green art paper and protected by tissue guards. Aside from the frontispiece, the plates are all gathered together at the end, after the text. Rip van Winkle was Rackham's first major color plate work and the first of the opulent Christmas Gift books. Its beauty and popularity began the "Golden Age of Book Illustration," in which publishers and illustrators competed to present the most beautiful volumes to the gift market. And what a superb gift this will make. Arthur Rackham RWS (1867 1939) was an English book illustrator. He is recognized as one of the leading figures during the Golden Age of British book illustration. His work is noted for its robust pen and ink drawings, which were combined with the use of watercolour, a technique he developed due to his background as a journalistic illustrator. Rackham's 51 colour pieces for the early American tale Rip Van Winkle became a turning point in the production of books since through colour-separated printing it featured the accurate reproduction of colour artwork.[1] His best-known works also include the illustrations for Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. (Wikipedia) First Edition with Arthur Rackham plates.

Rip Van Winkle is a short story by the American author Washington Irving, published in 1819 as part of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. The story is set in New York's Catskill Mountains and follows Rip Van Winkle, a Dutch American villager who falls asleep before the American Revolution and wakes up twenty years later to a very different world. His disappearance and return are met with incredulity by those around him. This tale is known for its themes of change and continuity, the American past, and individualism.