Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$1033.15 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First Edition Thus. Hardback. 4to. pp xii, 185. 29.5cm by 23cm. Bound in full powder blue leather by Baytun, lettered gilt at the spine with five raised bands and inner gilt dentelles. Highly attractive plates. Limited edition of 250 copies, this being no. 24. Signed by W. Heath Robinson on the limitation page. Very slight professional restoration at spine, otherwise very good indeed. Excellent condition.
Seller: Burwood Books, Wickham Market, United Kingdom
Price: US$1549.72 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: London: Constable & Co., 1914, Signed Numbered Limited Edition. Signed by the illustrator, limited edition of which this is number 239. Half leather binding, gilt titles on twin labels, 5 raised gilt bands. Beautiful specimen of an Illustrated Book [ROBINSON, W. Heath, illustrator]. SHAKESPEARE, [William]. Shakespeare's Comedy of A Midsummer-Night's Dream. With Illustrations by W. Heath Robinson. 1/250 copies signed by W. Heath Robinson (this copy being number 239). Twelve mounted colour plates, forty-six full-page and seventeen smaller black and white drawings. Collated and complete. Plate at page 32 bound in at page 1. Black and white illustrations included in the pagination (front and blank reverse), colour plates not part of the pagination. xii, [iv], 185pp. Approximately 12 inches tall. Condition Report Externally Spine good condition gilt titles on two labels, 5 raised gilt bands, 6 compartments. Joints good condition sound. Corners good condition. Boards good condition half leather and marbled boards. Page edges good condition top edge bright orange, fore ad bottom edges lightly tanned and uncut. See above and photos. Internally Hinges good condition intact. Paste downs good condition plain green. End papers good condition plain green. Title good condition illustrated title page, lightly tanned. Pages good condition Signed Limited Edition, limitation page prior to the frontispiece, coloured frontispiece, numerous coloured and b/w illustrations throughout, lightly tanned. Binding good condition. See photos Publisher: see above. Publication Date: 1914 Binding: Hardba
Seller: Louis88Books (Members of the PBFA), Andover, United Kingdom
Price: US$3228.59 + shipping
Description: Signed limited edition, number 29 of 250 copies signed by the artist. The Athenaeum included the book as being "books published this week" on 24 October 1914, and it was issued in both a trade and a remarkably small signed limited edition. The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art reviewed the volume in December 1914 and stated "the book. is an obvious prize for anyone who desires Shakespeare decorated and defined. Messrs. Constable, in format, printing, and binding, have, as usual, given to their work high quality and care". Alan Horne notes that "perhaps Robinson's best work was done for the 1913 Andersen, for A Midsummer Night's Dream and for two books for children which he wrote as well as illustrated - The Adventures of Uncle Lubin (1902) and Bill the Minder (1912)" (p. 373). Heath Robinson would later develop his individual style and draw ridiculous contraptions, thereby giving his name as a noun to the English language. The Athenaeum, 24 October 1914, p. 428; Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, 19 December 1914, p. 635; Alan Horne, The Dictionary of 20th Century British Book Illustrators, 1994. Quarto. Original parchment boards, spine and front cover lettered and with designs in gilt, top edge gilt. Colour frontispiece and 11 colour plates, with captioned tissue guards, black and white illustrations in the text, all by Robinson. Bookseller's label to rear pastedown. Extremities a little bumped, consistent soiling to rear cover, browning to endpapers: a very good copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom