“STORIES OF FOLK GONE BEFORE AND ADMONITORY INSTANCES OF THE MEN OF YORE”: SCARCE SEPARATE FIRST EDITION OF LETCHFORD’S ILLUSTRATIONS FOR SIR RICHARD BURTON’S 1897 ARABIAN NIGHTS, WITH 71 SPLENDID PLATES, EACH LOOSE AS ISSUED IN ORNAMENTAL GILT-STAMPED PORTFOLIO

(BURTON, Richard) LETCHFORD, Albert. A Series of Seventy Original Illustrations to Captain Sir R.F. Burton’s “Arabian Nights” and a Portrait… Reproduced from the Original Pictures in Oils Specially Painted by Albert Letchford. London: H.S. Nichols, (1897). Octavo, 71 plates (6-1/4 by 10 inches) with captioned tissue-guards, loose as issued, original booklet, original gilt-stamped black cloth folding portfolio.

First edition, “Series D,” of Albert Letchford’s “greatest work,” containing 71 beautiful plates commissioned as illustrations for Sir Richard Francis Burton’s lively (and often daring) translation of The Arabian Nights— the enduring, irresistible folk tales of Aladdin, Ali Baba and many more—each plate loose as issued with original captioned tissue guards, including portrait of Burton, with 15-page booklet, in original richly ornamental gilt-stamped portfolio.

The Alf Layla wa-Layla (“One Thousand Nights and a Night”) have enchanted readers for centuries with shimmering visions of a fabled land. Esteemed explorer and scholar Burton translated and annotated the Arabian Nights as “a legacy to his countrymen” (DNB). The prized Nichols editions— one in 1894, not illustrated, and the 1897 edition with Letchford’s plates— were the first complete editions of Burton’s translation after the rare, 16-volume first edition of 1885. Accomplished artist Albert Letchford was a “close friend of Sir Richard Burton.” Letchford was a young man when he first met the Burtons in Italy in 1884. They “were at once attracted by the charming manner, the great keenness and true artistic genius… Burton and he discussed the various passages most suitable for illustration and Letchford started an exhaustive study of Oriental detail by working for weeks in museums and reading up works on Eastern costume, architecture, furniture, etc… Letchford painted one illustration to the Nights in Burton’s lifetime, early in 1890… No. I of the series begun in 1895. He was first of all commissioned to paint 65 illustrations, but this number was subsequently increased to 70, without counting a portrait of Burton himself… The work was first done in charcoal and then painted in black and white, one set only being in color” (Penzer, 325-8). These 71 plates are “regarded as Letchford’s greatest work” (Spink 76). In addition to Letchford’s illustrations included in The Book of The Thousand Nights and a Night, “they were also issued in black cloth portfolios, some having elaborate ornamentation on the front [this copy], while others were plain” (Penzer 1897). The portfolios were issued in two sizes: folio and royal octavo. Of these, each was issued in three styles; this is the royal octavo “Series D” (Penzer 1897): no priority established. Without rarely found cloth ties. See Spink 76-80. Small bookplate to inner front portfolio cover.

Plates fresh and clean with only very lightest foxing not affecting images, slight edge-wear, rubbing to bright gilt-stamped cloth. A highly desirable near-fine copy.