SHAKESPEARE'S TEMPEST, ILLUSTRATED AND SIGNED BY ARTHUR RACKHAM—A BEAUTIFUL COPY

(RACKHAM, Arthur) SHAKESPEARE, William. The Tempest. London and New York: William Heinemann and Doubleday, Page, [1926]. Quarto, original half vellum, pictorial boards, top edge gilt, uncut and unopened. $4200.

Deluxe signed limited first edition, number 422 of only 520 copies, with 21 full-page mounted color illustrations and 25 in-text line cuts, signed by Rackham, uncut and unopened.

"Arthur Rackham's fanciful imagination gave his illustrations instant recognition, and his dedication to illustration kept him in the public eye for 30 years" (Hodnett, 233). His "excitingly original edition of The Tempest showed [him] experimenting in a simplified dramatic technique that was refreshingly and effectively 'modern'" (Derek Hudson). This signed limited first edition contains an extra color plate (the frontispiece, "Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell")— not issued in the trade edition. Without scarce original dust jacket. Latimore & Haskell, 61. Riall, 161.

A beautiful copy in fine condition.