Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$8500.00 + shipping
Description: . The Sphinx. With decorations by Charles Ricketts. London: Elkin Matthews and John Lane, at the sign of the Bodley Head, 1894. Full Description: WILDE, Oscar. The Sphinx. With decorations by Charles Ricketts. London: Elkin Matthews and John Lane, at the sign of the Bodley Head, 1894. First edition. One of 200 copies for Great Britain, printed on handmade paper. Small quarto (8 5/8 x 6 3/4 inches; 218 x 172 mm). [4, blank], [6], [27], [1, blank], [1, imprint], [5, blank] pp. Title-page printed in black, red, and green. Ten illustrations by Ricketts in the text (including title-page), of which eight are full-page, all printed in red. Initial letters (one large and twelve medium) and guide words printed in green. Original vellum, decoratively paneled and pictorially stamped in gilt after designs by Ricketts, whose monogram appears in the lower left-hand corners. Gilt is bright and vellum generally clean. Vellum very slightly bowed, as usual. Some foxing throughout as usual. Overall about fine. "The Sphinx is his [Rickett's] best book. The result is a perfect whole, as harmonious as it is dazzling." (Ray). Mason 361. Ray, Illustrator and the Book, 262. HBS 69042. $8,500.
Seller: Heritage Book Shop, ABAA, Beverly Hills, CA, U.S.A.
Price: US$9000.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: FIRST EDITION. 1 vol., 8-1/2" x 7", illustrated by Charles Rickets, limited to 200 copies, printed in 3 colors, bound in original art nouveau gilt decorated vellum, covers straight (often found quite bowed), inner and outer hinges fine, head and foot of spine fine, foxing to one side of the first 8 leaves (typical), previous owners bookplate to front pastedown, housed in a 1/2 red morocco clamshell slipcase, raised bands gilt decorated spine, overall still a VERY GOOD copy. Charles Ricketts's art nouveau illustrations, were described by W. E. Henley, Wilde's harshest critic, as "about as fin-de-Siecle a business as you ever saw" (Frankel, p. 155). Ricketts considered the designs for the illustrations and for the original vellum binding amongst his best work. While predominantly working with book illustration and design, Ricketts was also famed for his theater designs and costumes, and he contributed to the first English production of Wilde's Salome in 1906.
Seller: D&D Galleries - ABAA, Somerville, NJ, U.S.A.
Price: US$11500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: One of Wilde's great works and one of English literature's great feats of book design, executed by Wilde's friend, the artist and typographer Charles Ricketts, who was given full reign over every aspect of this book's typography, binding and illustration. The text features ten of Rickett's risque wood-engraved illustrations, nine of them full-page. The volume is richly bound in full vellum with Ricketts' sinuous decorations gilt-stamped on the covers, front and rear. This is a very good copy, entirely unfoxed, though the slender vellum boards have bowed just enough to separate slightly from the inner pastedown edges. There are two discreet bookplates on the front pastedown, one of which has left a tiny shadow on the front free endpaper oppositie. Otherwise a uniquely fresh copy presented here in a burgundy quarter-leather cloth solander with an internal cloth slipcase lined in marbled paper. 8vo (44 pages. One of 200 copies produced in England at the Ballantyne Press)
Seller: CHARTWELL BOOKSELLERS, NEW YORK, NY, U.S.A.
WILDE, Oscar.. The Sphinx.. London: Elkin Mathews and John Lane, 1894, 1894.
Price: US$12882.63 + shipping
Description: First edition, one of 200 unnumbered copies. Wilde's poem, together with Charles Ricketts's art nouveau illustrations, was described by W. E. Henley, Wilde's harshest critic, as "about as fin-de-Siecle a business as you ever saw" (Frankel, p. 155). Wilde first met Ricketts in 1889, and in the two years that followed the artist designed either parts or the entirety of several of Wilde's works, including The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Poems (1892), Intentions (1891), and Lord Arthur Savile's Crime (1891). While predominantly working with book illustration and design, Ricketts was also famed for his theatre designs and costumes, and he contributed to the first English production of Wilde's Salomé in 1906. As recorded by James G. Nelson, alongside the 200 copies published in the limited edition, a further 103 copies were printed, though most of these were left unbound. Mason 361; Nicholas Frankel, Oscar Wilde's Decorated Books, 2003; James G. Nelson, A Checklist of Early Bodley Head Books: 1889-1894, 1999. Small quarto. Original full vellum, pictorial decorations by Ricketts to spine and covers in gilt, all edges untrimmed, printed throughout in black, green, and red. Housed in a dark green quarter morocco solander box by the Chelsea Bindery. Title page design, one half-page illustration and eight full-page illustrations by Charles Ricketts. Boards very slightly bowed, as often, some natural variation to vellum on rear cover. A fine copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom