BLAKE, Quentin (illus.); HUGO, Victor.

£15,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. First edition in English, the "First Editions: Re-covered" copy. This copy features a unique dust jacket by Quentin Blake presenting two original drawings. The first shows Quasimodo hanging from a Notre-Dame buttress (130 x 120 mm), and the second depicts Quasimodo swinging on a bell (130 x 166 mm). The jacket is signed and dated "Quentin Blake 21 Sept 2017".A charity auction to benefit the House of Illustration was held on 11 December 2017. Book illustrators, fashion artists, painters, and artists were asked to choose a book which appealed to them. A first edition was then obtained, and the artist provided a unique dust jacket. Blake had previously illustrated The Hunchback of Notre-Dame for the Folio Society in 1998.Originally published in French in 1831, the first edition in English appeared as number 32 in Bentley's Standard Novels. This was a series of freshly revised texts in affordable editions of major contemporary authors, and it did much to introduce high-calibre international writers such as Hugo to British middle-class readers. This copy is bound without the series half-title. The binding, however, includes lettering-pieces on the spine with "Standard Novels" and "The Hunchback" on separate panels.In a press interview relating to the 2017 auction, Quentin Blake stated that The Hunchback of Notre-Dame "is a fascinating book. More exciting than I expected in fact because Hugo had very good ideas about mediaeval and the modern and it's re

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