[Signed] Little Brother & Little Sister (Signed limited edition) Rackham, Arthur (illustrator); Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm [Near Fine]

Description

Edition deluxe, number 144 of 525 numbered copies, signed by the artist. A Near Fine copy. Quarto (11 1/2 x 9 in; 293 x 227 mm). xi, [1], 250, [1], [1, blank] pp. Thirteen color plates mounted on brown paper, with original tissue guards. With a duplicate signed plate in the original printed envelope as issued (blank flap missing), ""He Hurried Away With Long Strides"". Original gray cloth over boards with a rectangular white cloth panel on the front cover pictorially stamped and lettered in gilt. Top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Illustrated endpapers. A few small marks on the back cover and a small red stain on the lower joint. Armorial book plate of Agnes Marion Armitage on front paste-down. Fred Gettings calls Rackham’s illustrations for Little Brother and Little Sister (a new Brothers Grimm title) ""one of his crowning achievements. In these twelve colour plates we find the most astonishing versatility of style, and an exquisite pitch of execution. The style ranges from the delicate to the virtual burlesque caricature. On the one hand is an example of pre-Raphaelite, infinitely tender portrayals of womanhood, such as 'The True Sweetheart', or the delicate realism of Maid Maleen and her waiting woman escaping from the terrible tower of her father. Yet within the same book we find the classic Rackhamerie of the gnome with his beard caught in the cleft of the semi-anthropomorphized tree, appealing to Rose-red and Snow-white for help and the Hassell-like custard-pie of the three soldiers and the long nose. This is one of the few books illustrated by Rackham from which it would be possible to select any single-colour picture in order to demonstrate Rackham's art at its finest"" (Gettings). Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) is perhaps the most acclaimed and influential illustrator of the Golden Age of Illustration. A prolific artist even from his youth, Rackham got his start as an illustrator working for the Westminster Budget Newspaper (1892). Over the next few years, he took on more and more commissions for children’s books, hitting his career high in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Rackham turned his imaginative pen to every classic—from Shakespeare to Dickens to Poe. Lattimore and Haskell, p. 46. Riall, p. 129. Near Fine.