ANDERSEN, Hans Christian; HARWERTH, Willi (illus.).

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Red Shoes. First Cleverdon edition, number 9 of 10 copies printed on handmade paper, signed by the artist, and containing an extra set of the engravings coloured by hand. This edition also includes an uncoloured set and an original hand-coloured drawing (reproduced on p. 22). This fine press edition of Andersen's fairy tale was one of Douglas Cleverdon's first publications, produced in collaboration with the German graphic artist Willi Harwerth.Cleverdon (1903-1987) started bookselling while he was studying at Oxford, "immediately establishing his reputation as a lover of fine printing and exquisitely illustrated books. He became part of what he himself later called the 'typographical renaissance' made possible by Stanley Morison's reintroduction of great typefaces of the past and Eric Gill's sculptural lettering, and became a close friend and disciple of both" (ODNB). He opened a shop in Bristol in 1926 and around the same time began to publish, producing a book of Gill's engravings in 1927, followed by this edition of Andersen, and then Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner in 1929.This volume was printed in Offenbach (Germany) by Wilhelm Gerstung using Rudolf Koch's Grobe-Antiqua type. Harwerth (1894-1982) studied at the Royal Art Academy and School of Applied Arts in Leipzig before working as a draftsman at the Gebr. Klingspor type foundry in Offenbach. He specialized in fairy tale and song books. The Red Shoes had first appeared in the original Danish in 1845; this

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