Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Signed limited edition)

Poe, Edgar Allan; Arthur Rackham (illustrator)

Published by George G. Harrap & Co., Ltd, London, 1935

About this Item

One of 460 copies signed by Arthur Rackham. Publisher's full vellum decorated in gilt. With twelve color plates, each with a captioned tissue guard, and seventeen black-and-white illustrations by Rackham. A bit of toning to vellum. Late-twentieth-century auction record clippings pasted to upper flyleaf. Ink ownership inscription, dated 1941, and corresponding bookplate to preliminary blank. In the publisher's slipcase, a bit soiled with edges reinforced with tape. A Fine copy in the Good slipcase. Rackham's illustrations visually intensify the macabre aspects of Poe's work and make the chilling stories accessible to a wide readership. Included in this selection are Poe's famous stories "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Fall of the House of Usher," and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." "According to Rackham, the illustrations he provided for Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination, in 1935, frightened even him, and whilst this might only be expected when a fine illustrator meets a fine and frightening text…The best plates are…indicative of a grandeur and vision one might not so far have perceived in Rackham…Perhaps not a book or set of illustrations for a night's reading in bed, alone" (Gettings 163-164). Arthur Rackham (1867 - 1939) is perhaps the most acclaimed and influential illustrator of the Golden Age of Illustration. A prolific artist even from his youth, Rackham got his start as an illustrator working for the Westminster Budget Newspaper (1892). Over the next few years, he took on more and more commissions for children s books, hitting his career high in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Rackham turned his imaginative pen to every classic from Shakespeare to Dickens to Poe. Latimore and Haskell, 72. Riall, 180. Fine.

Seller Inventory # 7322

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Signed limited edition)
• Publisher: George G. Harrap & Co., Ltd, London
• Publication Date: 1935
• Edition: First thus.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literature
  • Gift Ideas
  • Illustrated Books