RACKHAM, Arthur (illus.); POE, Edgar Allan.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Deluxe edition, number 3 of 460 copies signed by the artist. This is one of ten "special copies", specially bound, and with an original drawing by Rackham. The watercolour is signed and dated by the artist, and shows a seated man reading a hair-raising book while his black cat, with arched back, spits at the devil who emerges from behind the chair.Harrap devised this format for Rackham's illustrated edition of The Vicar of Wakefield in 1929. Rackham's bibliographer Richard Riall writes that this quickly became the publisher's standard practice: by 1932, "Harrap issued nine or ten copies, seven being for sale, of a special issue of the first limitation numbers of the limited edition" (p. xvi).Describing his artistic method for these "specials", Rackham noted that "my little sketches must inevitably be of a light hearted or joking nature... They have to be spontaneous and free handed. The nature of the paper is such that there can be no preparatory drawing and no alterations".

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