Books

London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1905. Limited, numbered, finely-bound deluxe, signed edition. Vellum. This exceptional 1905 edition of Washington Irving’s classic tale was notably and lavishly illustrated by Arthur Rackham. This is not just an aesthetically arresting and highly collectable edition on its own merits, but represents both a stylistic and professional turning point for the celebrated illustrator who contributed his art and his signature to this edition. Rip van Winkle was the first book entirely illustrated by Rackham to be issued in a limited edition format and “established him as the leading decorative illustrator of the Edwardian period.” Indeed, it was owing to exhibit of Rackham’s Rip van Winkle illustrations in Leicester Galleries, London, that “J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan, commissioned Rackham to illustrate the first edition of his classic children's tale Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906)”. This edition’s 250 copies were bound in illustrated…

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.