First Trade Edition RACKHAM, Arthur, [illustrator]. POE, Edgar Allan. Tales of Mystery & Imagination. London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1935. Full Description:
Tales of Mystery & Imagination.
London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1935.
POE, Edgar Allan. Tales of Mystery & Imagination. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. London: George G. Harrap & Co., [1935].
First trade edition. Quarto (9 3/8 x 7 1/4 inches; 240 x 185 mm). 317, [1] pp. Twelve mounted color plates, with descriptive tissue guards, seventeen black and white plates, and eleven small drawings in black and white. Half-title and title-page printed in black and olive.
Bound by Bayntun Riviere in full black morocco. Spine lettered in gilt. Gilt dentelles. Marbled endpapers, and secondary pictorial endpapers. All edges gilt. Boards edges with some light rubbing. Overall about fine.
“According to Rackham, the illustrations he provided for Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination, in 1935, frightened even him, and whilst this might only be expected when a fine illustrator meets a fine and frightening text, it is in fact difficult to see precisely which of the drawings or paintings could instill fear. There is a fine admixture of quite pleasant Rackhams within the book, such as the plate showing Tripetta imploring for the threatened life of her friend, whilst the plate for ‘Leonora’ is in the Rackhamesque of The Tempest, and the picture of the Lady Ligeia, who ‘came and departed as a shadow’, is more a portrait of the large, old decaying city near the Rhine, than of any fearful thing...The best plates are not so much frightening, as indicative of a grandeur and vision one might not so far have perceived in Rackham...One may list the plates which may be in any sense termed ‘frightening’ on the fingers of one hand. We find one fairly ordinary knifing (‘The Gold Bug’) such as may be found in any boy’s comic book at least once a week; one very peaceful death (‘The Oval Portrait’), which without the text might well be taken as a picture of a sleeping lady; [and] a spectral image which is almost funny in its attempt to strike fear (‘The Masque of the Red Death’)” (Fred Gettings, Arthur Rackham, pp. 163-164).
Latimore and Haskell, pp. 72-73. Riall, p. 189.
HBS 69643.
$1,250.
Price: $1,250.00
Item #69643