“SCHEHEREZADE HERSELF MUST HAVE APPEARED TO EDMUND DULAC”: DULAC’S ARABIAN NIGHTS, WITH 50 COLOR PLATES, ONE OF ONLY 350 COPIES SIGNED BY THE ARTIST

(DULAC, Edmund, illustrator). Stories from The Arabian Nights. Retold by Laurence Housman. London: Hodder and Stoughton, (1907). Thick quarto, publisher’s full vellum gilt, top edge gilt, uncut. Housed in a custom see-through slipcase.

Signed limited first edition, number 79 of 350 copies signed by Edmund Dulac—“an illustrator of first rank, a master of the fantastic and exotic and ‘a dreamer of extraordinary dreams” (Dalby, 82-83)—of his illustrated, deluxe gift edition of the Arabian Nights, with color frontispiece and 50 mounted color plates by him, beautiful in the original decorative vellum-gilt. A fine copy.

“Scheherezade herself must have appeared to Edmund Dulac. In a dream, perhaps, in which she kissed his eyelids. Where else could he have learned to see the things he saw? Faraway places. Exotic peoples. The mirages of domed and minareted cities. How else could he have known the look of an Eastern paradise? The curl of the last tendril blossoming in an Arab courtyard? The tilt of a crescent moon? And he did seem to know. Whole generations saw his paintings and agreed, ‘Yes, this is what the East must be like— and dreamt of it themselves” (Rebecca Bruns, “Arabian Nights—and Art Nouveau”). Dulac’s Arabian Nights exemplifies the “gift book” genre so popular during Christmas seasons of the early 20th century. “The ‘gift’ book was really something for a child to receive. They were heavy and thick, with beautifully blocked covers, ornamental headbands and colored endpapers. Inside there would be color plates, tipped-on to cartridge mounts and protected with tissue. These books were precious objects, to be looked at with awe and handled with care” (Lewis, 186). “Dulac remained true to the medium of watercolor, and the critics were unanimous in their praise. He was recognized as an illustrator of first rank, a master of the fantastic and exotic, and ‘a dreamer of extraordinary dreams” (Dalby, 82-83). With frontispiece and with 50 full-page mounted color illustrations bound at rear, as issued. Hughey 16. Bookplate.

One tissue guard with minor expert repair. Fine condition.