MR RACKHAM HAS BEEN BEWITCHED IN HIS CRADLE
Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
Hodder & Stoughton, 1906.
First edition. Edition de Luxe, number 389 of 500 copies signed by Arthur Rackham. Large 4to. Full white vellum with gilt lettering and decoration. Top edge gilt and others untrimmed. Endpaper with map of Kensington Gardens and fifty colour plates mounted onto brown art paper and protected by captioned tissue guards. The plates for this version of Barrie's tale are magnificent. A fine, bright copy of this sumptuous book. Minimal bowing to covers and silk ties lacking, else, clean, bright and stunning.
In 1902 J.M. Barrie wrote the novel "the Little White Bird", the central chapters of which tell of a child named Peter Pan, "...who escaped from being a human when he was seven days old ... and flew back to Kensington Gardens." This part of the story was then developed by Barrie and the first book to appear with the title of Peter Pan was this 1906 version to which Arthur Rackham provided 50 magnificent colour illustrations.
A contemporary review of this book published in "The World" reads "Mr Barrie has done what no one else has done since the inventor of "Alice", he has invented a new legend, a modern folk story which comprehends all the innermost secrets of the modern child, be he four or forty. Mr Rackham, for his part, has been bewitched in his cradle: he does not dream of fairies or hobgoblins, he knows them."
Stock ID: 30478
£7,500.00
