The Sign of the Seahorse: A Tale of Greed and High Adventure in Two Acts

The Sign of the Seahorse: A Tale of Greed and High Adventure in Two Acts Graeme Base Viking / Penguin Books Australia, Ringwood, 1992 First Australian edition, first printing ISBN 0-670-84000-9 Large quarto hardcover in publisher’s pictorial laminated boards, matching pictorial dust jacket. Unpaginated. Full-colour illustrations throughout, including double-page spreads, cast list, prelude, endpaper maps of Reeftown, the Old Reef, the Deep and the Withered Plain. Viking imprint on the title-page; copyright page states first published by Penguin Books Australia Ltd 1992. This copy Presentation copy, elaborately inscribed, signed and extra-illustrated by Graeme Base. The printed text at the head of the leaf is the usual opening verse. The entire ownership design beneath it is original artwork by Graeme Base: hand-drawn plaque, hand-lettered dedication to Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice, surrounding ornament, and additional original drawings, signed and dated 22nd November 1994. It is not a printed bookplate or a filled-in printed panel. THIS BOOK BELONGS to “HER ROYAL HIGHNESS / PRINCESS / BEATRICE !!!” with surrounding hand-coloured decoration, a large original drawing of a yellow fish saying “G’DAY!” with musical notes, coral, shells and a small extra sketch, plus a bold full signature “G Base / 22nd November 1994”. Condition of the book and jacket as shown in the photographs: a bright, well-preserved copy of the Australian first, the inscription page clean and unsmeared. About the book A two-act verse drama set on a coral reef. Pearl Trout, waitress at the Seahorse Café, falls for Corporal Bert of the Soldiercrab Army just as Gropmund Groper’s real-estate scheme poisons the Old Reef and drives the seahorses away. The story moves from Reeftown to a wreck, the Groper’s hide-out, the Deep and the source of the poison. Base supplies a cast list, a legend-mapped endpaper and densely populated underwater scenes in the same high-detail style as Animalia and The Eleventh Hour. Author and illustrator Graeme Base (born 1958, England; resident in Melbourne from childhood) writes and illustrates his own picture books. After My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch (1983) he became internationally known with Animalia (1986) and The Eleventh Hour (1988). The Sign of the Seahorse (1992) followed those successes: a longer, play-structured narrative with an ecological plot and the same packed, characterful watercolour-and-ink technique. He later published The Discovery of Dragons, The Water Hole, Uno’s Garden and others. He typically signs with a small original doodle; fully worked presentation drawings dated to a named royal recipient are exceptional. Rarity note The 1992 Australian Viking first is not a scarce title in ordinary condition. Signed copies with a small sketch appear from time to time. No other example of this 22 November 1994 inscription to Princess Beatrice of York, with the extra original drawings, has been located in dealer or auction records. The association is therefore unique. Terms Offered as a unique association copy. Please examine the photographs of the inscription, signature, title-page, maps and jacket. …