Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$327.12 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: The Romance of King Arthur. Limited edition No. 112/250 copies. Large paper edition. Front and back boards are lightly soiled, spine is frayed and has some loss but in terms of structure, sound. All plates intact, internally clean bright and square. Seems to be a good copy to bind. Please ask if more information or pictures are needed.
Seller: William Collins Rare and Collectable Books, Grimsby, United Kingdom
Price: US$1950.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Stated at limitation page: "This Edition Consists of Five Hundred Copies Signed by the Artist: 'No. 123, Arthur Rackham'". Rare signed, limited edition printed by MacMillan & Company of London. Large 9" x 11 1/2 x 2 1/2" design weighing over 5 lbs. Cream vellum (leather) boards, gilt embossed cover and spine titles, moderate shelf wear generally, some discoloration, wear to bottom area apprx. 1" high x 3" long. Bright gilt cover design features finely detailed bugler knight on regaled horseback; gilt spine design features stylized royal lion w/gilt bands. Frontispiece color plate by Rackham: "How Arthur drew his sword Excalibur for the first time". Pages generally very good; some discoloration, wear to bottom edge of first fifty, first few w/some missing material to same lower area, and moderately throughout, slightly increasing at back few pages. Couple leaves remain uncut. Bind good. Feature sixteen color plates in brilliant subdued hues and seven in black & white by Arthur Rackham. Each color plate features fine tissue guard w/caption. Additional partial-page imagery, headers, tailpieces, symbology and decoration throughout. Attractive, near good first edition. Sir Thomas Malory (1405 - 1471) collected all the ancient tales of the mythical Arthur and published them under the title Le Morte D'Arthur. The characters are familiar: Lancelot and Guinevere, and Tristan and Isolde, here in the definitive account of the Arthurian legends. The vigorous, eloquent epic tale of valor is noted for having been written in the best English prose of the Fifteenth Century. Include 5-page detailed glossary. Printed by R. & R. Clarke, Limited, Edinburgh. 509 pages. Insured post. Size: 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall
Seller: The BiblioFile, Rapid River, MI, U.S.A.
Price: US$2944.12 + shipping
Description: Signed limited edition, number 370 of 500 copies signed by the artist. The Romance of King Arthur was a wartime book, commissioned to reflect the nation's mood of patriotism and military endeavour. In preparing for the commission, Rackham turned to his own copy of Beardsley's Morte D'Arthur. Like Beardsley's illustrations, Rackham's designs have a stark black and white appearance, though Rackham "cannot resist the occasional wryly humorous touch such as a barking dog or a jester's head" (Hamilton pp. 111-112). A review of this edition in The Bookman (December 1917) stated that "the beauty and bizarre loveliness of the tales seem to have passed by some subtle alchemy into Mr Arthur Rackham's fanciful, whimsical, imaginative drawings in colour and black-and-white." and, in conclusion, "this is an ideal edition of a very characteristic old English classic". Latimore & Haskell, pp. 47-48; Riall, p. 130. James Hamilton, Arthur Rackham: A Life with Illustration, 1995. Quarto. Original parchment, spine and upper cover lettered and with pictorial decorations in gilt, top edge gilt. Colour frontispiece and 15 colour plates mounted on heavy white paper, with captioned tissue-guards, black and white illustrations in the text, all by Rackham. Some uniform soiling to binding, head and foot of spine a little bumped, occasional foxing and browning, short tear to front free endpaper: a very good copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$4500.00 + shipping
Description: Abridged from Malory's Morte d'Arthur by Alfred W. Pollard. xxiv, 509 pp. Illustrated in color and black and white by Arthur Rackham. Folio, publisher's full gilt-decorated vellum, t.e.g. First edition; No. 33 of 500 copies signed by Arthur Rackham. The vellum binding is dust-soiled and there is a five-inch crack to the rear inner hinge; contents fine. Rackham has added a small original pen drawing of a prancing jester(about 4-1/2 x 3 inches) to the colophon page, initialled A.R. and dated 9.12.17
Seller: Jeffrey H. Marks, Rare Books, ABAA, Rochester, NY, U.S.A.