Sir Arthur Sullivan: His Life, Letters And Diaries

First Edition (GHD colophon on the copyright page). Once listed, I believe this will be the Only dust jacketed first edition for sale anywhere on the Internet. As you can see from the photos, the covers of the book are in quite nice condition, very clean and with minimal wear, pretty impressive for a book not too many years from its hundredth birthday. The edges are in very good condition. The corners have only a wee bit of light rubbing. The spine is only slightly faded. The black lettering on the front and the spine is quite bright. There is a little color fade and wear at the spine ends. This thick 393 page book is square and very solidly bound from cover to cover, with nicely tight pages throughout, absolutely no binding issues. The page edges don't have any conspicuous stains. The middle and bottom page edges are deckled (for that reason you'll find an occasional slightly jagged bottom edge). I turned over every single page in the book, so I can comfortably write that they're in very good condition, with no conspicuous soiling, very clean pages. They are, as would be expected, toned or tanned, but uniformly and not badly. There are no turned-down or placeholder corner creases. I didn't see any dogeared corners. I found one page with a 1 1/2 inch loss off its bottom edge, far from the print. There are no other losses and no tears on any of the other pages. There are three pairs of uncut pages. There's a color frontispiece and one other in color: a painting of a young Arthur Sullivan. The frontispiece is 'from the portrait by Sir J. E. Millais, painted in 1888, and now in the National Portrait Gallery.' Beside the 'Two Four-Color plates, there are Twenty-Nine Half-Tone Plates.' All of the illustrations are in very good condition. There are no attachments of any kind. The book was previously owned by a Henry Heinman II, who penned his name at the top edge of the blank first front end paper along with the date 1952. Below that he stamped his name along with the words 'Littera Scripta Manet' (the written word remains) which is part of a longer expression: Vox audita perit, littera scripta manet (The spoken word perishes, but the written word remains). There is no other writing and no other markings or stampings to be found anywhere else in the book. You can see the rare first edition dust jacket in the first few photos. Given its age, it presents very well. The front and rear are quite clean. I'm not seeing any soiling there. The lettering on the front is very bright. The spine has darkened and has a few fairly inconspicuous spots of soiling. The lettering on the spine is also quite bright. As you can see there is a little bit of loss at the spine ends, but it doesn't quite manage to affect the lettering. All four corners of the flaps are neatly clipped, however the price ($5.00) is untouched. One unfortunate reality: a previous owner placed a number of strips of tape on the inside (not outside) of the jacket. This is a very solid jacket and the use of the tape was really unnecessary as it just covered over a number of very small tears. You won't see the tape because of the fitted protective cover. Note that the white at the top edge in the 1st & 3rd photos is just glare off the plastic of the protective cover (except just to the right and left of the spine where there were losses). From the dust jacket: 'Authoritative, dramatic, human, is this definitive biography of the great musician by his nephew and the famous English editor. The personality of the man who composed the firm measures of "Onward Christian Soldiers" and the rollicking yet subtle measures of "Pinafore" and "The Mikado" is told with critical perception and human understanding. A wealth of incident and psychological analysis illuminates the events of his cloister days, his experience in America, his friendships with Carlisle, Tennyson and other great men of the day, and how he came finally to break with Gilbert, his lifelong partner-librettist.'.…