“A VIVID IMAGINATION, FINE DRAWING AND WARM COLORING”: DELUXE LIMITED GIFT EDITION OF DETMOLD’S ARABIAN NIGHTS, WITH 12 VIVID COLOR PLATES, ONE OF ONLY 100 COPIES SIGNED BY THE ARTIST

DETMOLD, Edward Julius. The Arabian Nights. Tales from the Thousand and One Nights. London: Hodder and Stoughton, [1924]. Quarto, publisher’s full vellum gilt, top edge gilt, uncut. Housed in custom slipcase.    $7000.

Signed limited edition of this selection of tales from the “Thousand and One Nights,” number 41 of 100 copies signed by prominent Edwardian children’s book illustrator Edward Detmold, with 12 mounted color plates by him, lovely in publisher’s vellum-gilt.

One of the Edwardian era’s foremost book illustrators (he especially won praise for his 1906 edition of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book), Detmold produced during the 1920s “a number of books of fantasy drawing… which show a vivid imagination, fine drawing and warm coloring” (Houfe, 115). He here illustrates nine of the most popular tales from the Arabian Nights story cycle—among them the thrilling exploits of Sinbad the Sailor, Aladdin and Ali Baba—with 12 mounted plates in vivid color.

Light wear to spine foot, original vellum lovely, gilt bright. A beautiful, fine copy.