Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$440.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Quarto, 9 x 11.1 in., pp. 170. Limited Edition #270/350. Signed by Hugh Thomson on limitation page. Illustrated with frontispiece and thirty-nine other captioned tissue-guarded full-color plates, and other additional black ink line drawings, by Hugh Thomson. Full-page plates are mounted on dark brown cardstock, each preceded with a captioned guard page.Vellum binding with gilt title and character decoration to cover; gilt title to spine. Soiling and staining to vellum boards. Base of spine missing a 2 in. x 1 in. thin piece. One inch closed tear to vellum at top of spine. Replacement silk ties threaded through vellum. Top edge gilt, fore-edge and tail untrimmed. Spotting to front endpapers. Light toning to printed pages. Text and plates in very good condition.
Seller: Aardvark Rare Books, ABAA, EUGENE, OR, U.S.A.
SHAKESPEARE, William. The Merry Wives of Windsor. Frederick A. Stokes, New York, 1910.
Price: US$600.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Illustrated by Hugh Thomson with 40 delightful color plates, mounted on heavy brown paper and protected by lettered tissue guards. Other in-text drawings throughout. 170pp of text. 4to, original gilt-stamped pictorial vellum (lightly soiled, lacking the silk ties and warped); uncut edges, t.e.g. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1910. Very good. Limited edition. Number 288 of 350 copies. Signed by Thomson on the limitation page.
Seller: Argosy Book Store, ABAA, ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$850.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Signed limited edition, this being 291 of 350 with Thomson's signature on the limitation page. Original vellum binding with gilt to front board and spine; ribbon ties still present. Top edge gilt. Light soiling to boards and spine; bottom corners gently bumped. Hinges previously repaired with Japanese paper, slightly foxed; tender but overall holding well. Internally a clean and pleasing copy, featuring 39 beautiful colored plates by famed illustrator Hugh Thomson. Thomson, famed at the turn of the century for illustrating works by luminaries including Jane Austen and William Shakespeare, provides his lovely renderings of Falstaff's comedic adventures. First published in 1602, The Merry Wives of Windsor was Shakespeare's response to public calls that he create a play casting the humorous history-play figure Falstaff as its protagonist. Here, rather than serving as the slapstick and bawdy companion to Prince Hal, he takes center stage in a comedic structure, pursuing two wealthy married women in an attempt to alleviate his own penury. Thomson's gorgeously colored illustrations capture the humor of Shakespeare's play in a lovely, late-Pre-Raphaelite style. Very Good +.
Seller: Whitmore Rare Books, Inc. -- ABAA, ILAB, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A.