The Passing Show

New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1900. First Edition . Quarter Cloth & Illust. Boards. Very Good. Elephant Folio - over 15" - 23" tall. Wenzell, A.B.. New York: P.F. Collier, 1900 (1903) (see explanation below). First Edition in this form. A very large - Elephant folio - collection of black and white, and some full color, art by the estimable illustrator A.B. Wenzell; all of it being oversized as well. Some occupy two elephant folio pages, including a two-page color frontis. Illustrated beige boards and quarter cloth, unpaginated. Very Good. Some small-scale wear at edges and corners and a bit of soiling; a little weakness at front hinge. Handsome and really quite tight for the condition this book is usually found in. Large reproductions of drawings by Wenzell, depicting courtship, recreation, and other aspects of life at the turn of the century, in America and England. Wenzell was born in 1864 in Detroit, and became a popular illustrator associated with the depiction of the sort of fashionable society drawn in this volume a few years prior to its publication. It is his best known collection, and, in case you were wondering from the variety of dates shown elsewhere for the book, the latest copyright date in this true first edition thus example is 1900; the title page shows "MCMIII" (1903), and that is the collation of the true first publication in this form. Much of the work did appear elsewhere, earlier, in various forms. From an internet review: "His subjects often were trim, well-bred, well-dressed girls in drawing rooms, and the figures were described by one critic as 'things without existence anywhere.' " High praise, for a romantic illustrator. He would have been as beloved today. l-lng1