Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. With Ninety-Two Coloured Illustrations by Harry Rountree

Description

First Rountree edition. Original cream cloth over bevelled boarsds. Gilt lettering and design blocked in full colour to front board; gilt lettering, elaborate gilt decor, and white gilt label to spine. Sunning to spine; gilt on spine dulled. Wear to base and top of spine, and c. 3cm neatly repaired tear to cloth over front hinge near base. Moderate soiling to boards. Mild wear to board corners. Small 4to (19 x 23.9cm). Top edges gilt; mild browning to page edges. Hinges sound. Pictorial endpapers, mildly foxed, reinforced at gutters with cream cloth tape. Title page printed in red & black, with colour vignette. Small abrasion to bottom outer corner of frontis and t.p., not affecting text or image. Text block bright and largely fresh, with occasional faint use-marks. Profusely illustrated with 92 colour illustrations, many of which are full page. Undated; date taken from Houfe. Harry Rountree (1878-1950), New Zealand-British illustrator and painter; his illustrated Alice went through many editions, and he was indeed to create an entirely new set of Alice illustrations in 1928. This is the first publication of his 1908 Alice, produced in the initial rush of re-illustrated editions after copyright on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland ran out in 1907. Rountree’s ‘metier was always comic animals and books for children’, and his work was ‘characterised by subtle colours and fluid washes with a great accuracy of natural background’ (Houfe, 1978, The dictionary of British book illustrators and caricaturists, 1800-1914). Printed on coated paper which has retained Rountree’s lively, light-hearted illustrations with great immediacy. Robust packaging. Tracking is always added to USA orders. It can be added to other overseas orders on request.