“A MASTER OF THE MEDIUM”: SIGNED LIMITED EDITION OF RACKHAM’S SLEEPING BEAUTY
EVANS, C.S. The Sleeping Beauty. London and Philadelphia: William Heinemann; J.B. Lippincott, (1920). Quarto, original half vellum with gilt-stamped cream paper boards, pictorial endpapers, top edge gilt, uncut; housed in a custom slipcase.
Deluxe signed limited first edition, number 452 of only 625 copies signed by Rackham, with 19 full-page and 41 in-text silhouettes (several with color), and mounted color frontispiece.
"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). Like his Cinderella (1919), The Sleeping Beauty relied "almost wholly for [its] effect on silhouette… Rackham [was] a master of the medium, being able to evoke character and humor by profile and gesture alone, and allowing the two-dimensional effect of his pen work to lead the reader through the book and keep the story going" (Hamilton, 118). Latimore & Haskell, 51. Riall, 141. Hamilton, 189. Hudson, 170. Owner signature.
Text and plates fine, very little of the usual soiling to vellum. A near-fine copy.