Rip Van Winkle

[Rackham, Arthur] Irving, Washington

Published by William Heinemann, London, 1905

Collating viii, 57, [1 blank], [2]. Publishers green cloth, pictorially stamped in gilt on front cover and lettered in gilt on spine, plain green endpapers, all edges stained green. Color frontispiece and fifty color plates mounted with lettered tissue guards. Preliminary text leaves foxed, otherwise an excellent copy. "The 51 illustrations, for a story of not more than five thousand words, enables the story to be told twice, once through Irving's words, and once again, image by image, through Rackham's pictures. In his illustrations, Rackham pays homage not only to Dürer, Cruikshank and Dutch seventeenth-century painting, but to contemporary artists, too" (Hamilton). "But the first work that greatly advanced his fame in the years immediately following his marriage was his edition of Rip Van Winkle… This lovely book decisively established Rackham as the leading decorative illustrator of the Edwardian period" (Hudson). Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) is perhaps the most acclaimed and influential illustrators of the Golden Age of Illustration. A prolific artist even from his youth, Rackham got his start as an illustrator working for the Westminster Budget Newspaper (1892). Over the next few years, he took on more and more commissions for children s books, hitting his career high in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Rackham turned his imaginative pen to every classic from Shakespeare to Dickens to Poe. Latimore and Haskell 26. Riall 69-70. Gettings 176. Hamilton 68. Hudson 57, 167. Hudson 180 (Rackham bookplate). Seller Inventory # 3731

Bibliographic Details

Title: Rip Van Winkle
Publisher: William Heinemann, London
Publication Date: 1905
Edition: First edition.