Hare Illustrator, Signed (1 results)

First Edition. One of Only Fifty Signed - Cecil Aldin at His Most Characteristic Handsomely Bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe ALDIN, Cecil Aldin, illustrator. HARE, Kenneth. Roads and Vagabonds. [London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1930]. Signed Limited Edition. One of only 50 numbered copies, this being no. 42, signed by both Cecil Aldin and Kenneth Hare. Large quarto (10 3/4 x 7 3/4 inches; 273 x 187 mm.). viii, 189, [1, blank] pp. Two inserted full-color plates and numerous color-tinted illustrations throughout the text. Handsomely bound ca. 1960 by Sangorski & Sutcliffe in full maroon crushed morocco, covers ruled in gilt, spine with five raised bands, elaborately tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments, gilt-ruled board edges and turn-ins, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt. A fine, elegant copy. A particularly charming example of Cecil Aldin's mature work, Roads and Vagabonds captures the artist's enduring fascination with the English countryside - its inns, lanes, sporting life, and gently comic rural characters. Aldin's illustrations, at once affectionate and keenly observed, helped define the visual language of early 20th-century British sporting and travel books. The limitation of just fifty signed copies places this among the scarcest of Aldin's illustrated books, seldom encountered on the market, and almost always in lesser bindings. The present example is significantly enhanced by its later binding by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, the great London firm associated with some of the finest decorative bindings of the modern era, here executed in a restrained but luxurious style that complements the work beautifully. Signed.