Peer Gynt

Octavo. 255, [3]. 10" x 7.75" RACKHAM & THE TROLL KING Peer Gynt: a poet, a braggart, and a renowned Norwegian folk hero who must find a woman's love or be destroyed. Peer's travels, first captured in Henrik Ibsen's 1867 play-in-verse, take him inside mountains to troll kings, under Arabic tents among seductive tribesmen's daughters, and back home to Norway to his childhood love. Despite his rapidly deteriorating health, Arthur Rackham transported readers to desert scenes, unusual for him, as well as to his typically ghoulish fairytale settings. With the troll king glowering from the dust jacket, this first trade edition is a testament to Rackham's artistic versatility, even toward the end of his life, as a pillar of Golden Age illustration. [Latimore & Haskell, 74]. Gently pressed spine tips, slight bump front board upper edge and upper corners, faint offset browning endpapers, still near fine, in near fine dust jacket with shallowly chipped corners and tips, several short closed tears upper edge, in mylar cover. Publisher's full brick red buckram, illustratively stamped in gilt, top edge stained brick red, illustrated endpapers, in Arthur Rackham dust jacket (15/- NET).…