THE INGOLDSBY LEGENDS, OR MIRTH & MARVELS

London: J. M. Dent & Co, 1898. First Rackham Edition. 200 x 135 mm. (7 7/8 x 5 3/8"). 2 p.l. (including the frontispiece), xxiii, [i], 638 pp., [1] leaf.
VERY ATTRACTIVE CONTEMPORARY ARTS AND CRAFTS STYLE BINDING OF RUSSET NIGER GOATSKIN, LAVISHLY GILT, covers with central panel of gilt ruled squares within wide frame of flowers and foliage, raised bands, spine compartments densely gilt with tooling repeating the cover frame design, gilt turn-ins, top edge gilt, other edges gilded on the rough. Title page with green ornamental border, numerous black and white illustrations, and 12 color plates (including frontispiece), all by Arthur Rackham. Latimore & Haskell, p. 11. ◆Faint, even darkening to the spine, covers with minor soiling, title and frontispiece rather foxed, text with small dots of foxing at fore edge, but a very attractive copy nevertheless, the animated gilt of the binding still bright, the leather with only insignificant wear, and the text clean and fresh.

The work between the covers of this fine Arts & Crafts binding was first published in "Bentley's Miscellany" (1840) and "The New Monthly Magazine" (1842), becoming immensely popular because of its "humor, felicity of verse, narrative power, and variety of subject." (Oxford Companion) The English humorist Richard Harris Barham (1788-1845) is generally considered to have been particularly successful in the grotesque and frankly comic treatment of Medieval legend. This is an early book illustrated by Arthur Rackham (1867-1939), whose work began to be noticed only after the turn of the century. Houfe tells us that soon after Rackham joined the staff of "The Westminster Budget" in 1892, he "established himself as one of the foremost Edwardian illustrators and was triumphant in the early 1900s when color printing first enabled him to use subtle tints and muted tones to represent age and timelessness." Although not signed by him, the present binding looks in its design features very much like the highly influential work of Douglas Cockerell (1870-1945), especially in its broad gilt leaves and spreading Egyptian floral stamps. The color of the leather, the general pattern of cover blocking, and the thick raised bands also are typical of Cockerell, who was apprenticed in 1893 at the newly founded Doves Bindery and later was the teacher of Francis Sangorski and George Sutcliffe, before he set up his own bindery..