R[ainforth] A[rmitage].WALKER, R[ainforth] A[rmitage]. Le Morte DArthur with Beardsley Illustrations. A Bibliographical Essay.

by WALKER

£50 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd · No longer available

Beardsley as Crème de Menthe, Morris as Old Brandy. WALKER, R[ainforth] A[rmitage].WALKER, R[ainforth] A[rmitage]. Le Morte DArthur with Beardsley Illustrations. A Bibliographical Essay. Bedford: [Rogers G. Porter] for the author . 1945. 8vo. Original grey printed wrappers, saddle-stitched and stapled as issued; pp. 24; bee device to title; a few small marks to wrappers, else a very good copy. One of 350 copies of R.A. Walker’s bibliographical essay on the Morte d’Arthur illustrated by Beardsley, with a ‘critical summary of Morris’s Kelmscott Press with which this book is always compared’ (p. 5). Walker, an early champion of Beardsley’s work and editor of the seminal 1923 Some Unknown Drawings of Aubrey Beardsley , characterises as a half-truth the ‘glib phase that the Morte was “to rival the volumes of the Kelmscott Press”, as stated by Ross’ (p. 15) and has a rather critical view of Morris and his visual and textual ‘agoraphobia’. ‘With Morris all is thick, turgid, heavy, clotted and difficult to read. It is the difference between crème de menthe and old brandy, between a heavy port and a dry cherry, between a rich burgundy and a light Rhenish wine’ (p. 20). The present essay is expanded from Walker’s ‘Bibliographical Notes on “Le Morte d’Arthur”’, TLS (31 March 1945). Samuels Lasner 188. SKU: 2125407

• Binding: Hardcover

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