Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
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.
Wilde, Oscar. The Sphinx. Elkin Mathews and John Lane, London, 1894.
Price: US$9620.71 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: [44]p (including blanks), original gilt decorated vellum designed by Charles Ricketts, with his monogram to bottom left hand corner of upper cover and the monogram of the binders (Leighton, Son and Hodge) to the bottom left hand corner of the lower cover. Corners slightly bumped and rubbed, vellum generally quite bright and clean. Internally some light browning to page edges, some light foxing to several pages (as often), but generally fairly clean. Small booksellers label and previous owners book plate to front paste down. Printed in three colours throughout. Stated one of two hundred copies for the UK, with another fifty printed for the US and twenty-five large paper copies (and possibly a few more). Now housed in a cloth drop back box by Temple Bookbinders. Holbrook Jackson called 'The Sphinx' "'the most remarkable of the books of this period' because it translated the Wildean temperament into physical form . Ricketts created a parallel system of symbols evoking the mystery and erotic sensuality the Aesthetes often associated with Egypt" (Thomson, 'Aesthetic Tracts - Innovation in Late-Nineteenth-Century Book Design', page 75). Mason 361 Size: 8vo
Seller: Temple Rare Books, Oxford, United Kingdom
Price: US$11000.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: A famous sexual symbolic poem by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). Inscription on the book dedicated to Reginald Turner (1869-1938) - a journalist, an aesthete and one of the true friends of the poet. The dedication reveals the name of Ada Esther Leverson (1862-1933): To Regie Turner with love from Sphinx. Text in English. In 8vo. 22.5x17.2cm. 18 pages. 10 illustrations by Ricketts. H.C. Rebound. Half-leather binding. Includes vellum original cover, discoloration and stains on cover spine. Dedication in ink and brush on endpaper. Serious foxings, especially flyleaves and endpapers. Very good condition.
Seller: Kagerou Bunko (ABAJ, ILAB), Tokyo, Japan
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$12827.62 + 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