Books

Superb illustrations! First limited edition, in gilt printed cream buckram, gilt title to spine, light edge finger marking. Internally, half title, frontis, [1], 36 pp, 12 pls (each with a printed guard), 13 large initial letters, all coloured in black & teal, t.e.g., remainder uncut, cover designed design by Charles Ricketts, pencil name to fpd (B Wood 1921), some light offsetting to fep. (299*226 mm). Wilde first published the Spinx in 1894, and this edition is limited to 1,000 copies & cannot be reprinted, as the stones from which the offset plates were printed were in Belgium at the time of the German invasion, and were destroyed.

The Sphinx is a one-act play written by Oscar Wilde. It's a dramatic monologue by a woman who laments the absence of her lover, who has died. The richness of the symbolic imagery intertwines themes of love with the mystery of the Sphinx.