Books

The "Little" Rackham Peter Pan [RACKHAM, Arthur, illustrator]. BARRIE, J.M. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. With Twenty-Four Drawings by Arthur Rackham. London: Hodder and Stoughton, [1910]. First edition in this format. Small quarto (7 7/8 x 5 13/16 inches; 200 x 147 mm.). xii, 125. Twenty-four color plates with titled tissue-guards and four line drawings in the text. Publisher's 'Deluxe' limp green suede, front cover with brown morocco onlaid pane decorated in blind, in turn surrounding a rectangular tan calf onlay, pictorially decorated in gilt with "Peter Playing his Pipes". Plain spine, top edge gilt. Exact facsimile pictorial endpapers with map of Kensington Gardens, later front & back endpapers. Still an excellent copy of this extremely scarce 'Deluxe' suede binding. Rackham's Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens was originally issued in 1906 and contained fifty tipped-in color plates. This edition in small format was published in 1910 and included twenty-four of the original fifty color plates. Riall, p. 105 (listing this Limp Green Suede binding before the red cloth trade edition).

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens is one of J.M. Barrie's works that features the character Peter Pan, offering a backstory to the beloved 'boy who wouldn't grow up.' Originally part of Barrie's book 'The Little White Bird' (1902), these chapters were later republished as a stand-alone story detailing Peter's adventures in London's famous Kensington Gardens. It's a tale of fantasy that explores themes of childhood innocence and escapism.