About this Item
London: Published by the Great Western Railway, 1935.
Railway Ribaldry. Being 96 Pages of Railway Humour. [London]: Published by the Great Western Railway in the Centenary Year of the Company, 1935.
First edition.
In full coarse grained morocco leather with the original front cover art work in leather onlays to the front board, gilt rule to both board edges housed in a custom made clam-shell box with the original covers affixed to the box inners.
Pages generally clean, tanned with some foxing, the frontispiece with some bleeding of the black colour to the page margins.
Original stiff colour pictorial wrappers (green, yellow, and black) bound into the clamshell box.
"One of his happiest assaults on the solemn edifices of the business world was his centenary booklet for The Great Western Railway. If any vindication was needed for private management as opposed to state ownership, Heath Robinson?s Great Western Railway Centenary Book Railway Ribaldry provided it. That this great railway company should turn to Heath Robinson for its celebratory panegyric shows a splendid sense of proportion. The paper-covered book contains some very funny drawings, including the frontispiece of ?Mr W. Heath Robinson?s Own Private Railway Engine, Not Often Allowed on the G.W.R.?, which was hardly surprising for it was a most gimcrack affair with wobbly wooden wheels, yet it still had an air of credibility about it. The other drawings in Railway Ribaldry reveal every kind of probable and improbably thing that could have happened on the Great Western Railway On every one of the 96 pages in this centenary celebration booklet, there are solemn little men going about their tasks of building the first locomotive, testing the speed of engines, catching cows with a feather-bedded cow-catcher, teaching the meaning of signals to engine drivers (who are mounted on ?hobby-horse? engines), or ?Making a Simple Error of Judgement in a Goods Yard?. This last subject was a picture of a high loaded truck, with a man perched on top, about to pass under a very low bridge?and so on. The book sold for one schilling. Heath Robinson?s public really got good value for their money"
(John Lewis, Heath Robinson, Artist and Comic Genius, p. 176).
Pagination: 96 pp. of black and white illustrations.
Provenance: no signatures or bookplates.
Box: approximately 11 inches tall (28cm).
Book: approximately 10 inches tall (25.5cm).
Condition Report
Externally
Spine ? fine condition ? gilt titles, five raised bands.
Joints ? fine condition.
Corners ? fine condition.
Boards ? fine condition ? with leather onlays to the front board.
Page edges ? very good condition ? all gilt.
Binding ? fine condition ? a beautiful binding.
Clamshell box ? fine condition ? cloth covered clamshell box.
See above and photos.
Internally
Hinges ? fine condition.
Paste down ? fine condition ? marbled paper, gilt lined leather turn-in.
Free end papers ? fine condition.
Title ? good condition ? tanned.
Pages ? good condition ? some foxing and marks throughout, some ?bleeding? from the black frontispiece to the page margin.
See photos.
Seller Inventory # ABE-1765200325693
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