Books

Limited edition, number 280 of 500 unsigned, from a total edition of 535 numbered copies of which Nos. 1 to 35 are signed by the author and have been printed on T. H. Saunders mould-made paper. Kauffer was born in the United States but settled in England in 1914. He was a member of both Wyndham Lewis's Group X and the Cumberland Market Group. An accomplished painter, Kauffer's real genius was in advertising art; he produced seminal posters for the London Transport Board and for the Great Western Railway, as well as book jackets and illustrations. "Kauffer's sprightly, jazzy, designs were part of the social fabric of progressive, forward-looking Britain in his time" (ODNB). Octavo. Finely bound by the Chelsea Bindery in blue morocco, green morocco title label lettered in silver, two raised bands, multi-coloured onlay of Robinson Crusoe to the front board after the original cover design, turn-ins with silver rule either side, blue endpapers, silver edges. Frontispiece and 7 hand coloured illustrations by E. McKnight Kauffer, using the pochoir process. A fine copy. .

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, is one of the earliest and most influential novels in the history of English literature. It is a fictional autobiography of the title character, a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being rescued. The story is widely perceived as a comment on the British Imperialism of the age and the emerging ideology of the 'self-made man', and it reflects on the author's vast array of experiences.