About this Item
Stated 'Sixth Printing-- Feb. 1929.' Once listed, this will be the Only signed copy for sale on the Internet that is not part of the signed limited edition. The first printing was published in October 1928. The signed inscription is on the half-title page. It reads: 'To Ilse Michaelis, with best compliments, Willy Pogany, 1930.' I have provided a photograph of the signed page. Ilse Michaelis was likely the daughter of the German biochemist Leonor Michaelis. He and his wife had two daughters, Ilse and Eva. In 1929, Leonor Michaelis, who had been working at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore as a resident lecturer in medical research, moved to the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research in New York City. Pogany was also a New York City resident at the time. The book is in excellent condition, not what you would expect of a book of this age. You can see the covers in the photos. The blue is nicely bright. The gilt lettering and the gilt design on the front is quite bright. The gilt lettering on the spine is in pretty nice shape, though a few of the letters have partial fading. The spine ends have a little bit of crinkling and rubbing. There is one thin darkish spot on spine. The cover edges are in excellent shape with the blue remaining bright. The corners look very good with just a tiny bit of light rubbing, no rub-through. The top page edge is gilt. It looks very good. The middle and bottom page edges are very clean. The spine has a slight forward lean, but the book is very solidly bound from cover to cover, and the covers are nicely, tightly bound as well. I turned over all the pages and found only two instances of a very thin (emphasis on 'very') space along part of the juncture between two facing pages. In both instances the facing pages were tightly bound from top to bottom. The pages look terrific. They are exceptionally clean and bright. I didn't see any toning. I found only three pages with one or a few inconspicuous spots. They are that clean. The illustrated inside covers and end papers, front and rear, are also exceptionally clean. There is no foxing to be found anywhere in the book. All of the black and white and color illustrations are in excellent condition. I didn't see any conspicuous creasing. A few early pages have one tiny crinkle. It isn't too often that you can rate a book published in 1929 Very Good Plus. 'A large portion of Pogany's work is described as Art Nouveau. Pogany's artistic style is heavily fairy-tale oriented and often features motifs of mythical animals such as nymphs and pixies. He paid great attention to botanical details. He used dreamy and warm pastel scenes with watercolors, oil paintings, and especially pen and ink. Pogany was born in Szeged, Austria-Hungary as Vilmos Feichtmann (aka Feuchtmann) to Heléne (née Kolisch) and Joseph Feichtmann. He studied at Budapest Technical University and in Munich and Paris. He spent his early childhood with his brothers and sisters in a large farmhouse full of chickens, ducks, geese, dogs, pigs, and horses. In London, he crafted his quartet of masterpieces: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1910), Tannhauser (1911), Parsifal (1912) and Lohengrin (1913). Each of these was designed completely by Pogany, from the covers and end papers to the text written in pen and ink, pencil, wash, color and tipped-in plates. After ten years in London, Pogany emigrated to America. Besides book illustration, pictures, mural paintings, portraits, etchings, and sculptures, Pogany became interested in theatre and designed stage settings and costumes for different shows and the Metropolitan Opera House. He eventually moved to Hollywood to serve as an art director for several film studios during the 1930s and 1940s.'.
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