Books

Wingate. London. 1951. First edition. Number 68 from an unspecified limited edition, signed by Cecil Beaton to the half-title. Hardback, octavo; bound in pale-blue moire silk with gilt titles to front board, no dust jacket, instead the original jacket design is used as the endpapers, numbered limitation slip tipped onto half-title. 86 pages. 64 b&w hors-texte plates, numerous b&w text illustrations, colour illustrated title-page. English. 225x155mm. 0.5kg. Very good; fading to silk boards as is common, light rubbing to forecorners, spine ends and edges of cloth, slight soiling to cloth. The silk-bound limited and signed deluxe edition of Beaton's personal account of his love affair with ballet. The limitation is unspecified but we have been unable to find any copies numbered above 100. The endpapers reproduce the colourful dust jacket of the standard edition. The book covers Beaton's lifelong interest in ballet, from watching The Palace Girls when young, through the Ballets Russes and Sadler's Wells, to designing productions for The Royal Ballet. His reminiscences and artistic comments are accompanied by his photographs and drawings of the great stars and choreographers of ballet from the first half of the 20th century - Lydia Lopokova, Leonide Massine, Tamara Karsavina, Serge Lifar, Kyra Nijinska, Margot Fonteyn, Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, Christian Berard and Lord Berners. Beaux Books specialises in fine and rare books on art and culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. We welcome questions about our books and we are happy to provide any extra images. Buy with confidence from an experienced bookseller. 1951. First edition. Number 68 from an unspecified limited edition, signed by Cecil Beaton to the half-title.

Cecil Beaton presents an eminent pictorial record of the ballet from 1930 to 1939. In 'Ballet', Beaton's work is accompanied by an absorbing text, filled with anecdotage and cameo sketches of his subjects which include such stars as Margot Fonteyn and Frederick Ashton.