* * * C H I L D R E N' S B O O K S * 2 0 2 4 B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S 21 “HE ESCAPED FROM BEING A HUMAN WHEN HE WAS SEVEN DAYS OLD…”: PETER PAN, THE TITLE THAT MADE RACKHAM FAMOUS, SIGNED BY RACKHAM 21. (RACKHAM, Arthur) BARRIE, J.M. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. London, circa 1912. Quarto, original full pictorial vellum gilt, uncut. $9200 Enlarged third edition, deluxe issue in full pictorial vellum-gilt, with a color frontispiece, 49 mounted color plates, and 12 in-text line cuts (seven full-page and new to this edition)—this copy signed on the title page by Arthur Rackham. Peter Pan first appeared as a character in Barrie’s 1902 novel The Little White Bird; this book contains the chapters featuring the boy who never grows up. It is also “the book which first made Rackham’s work famous” (Carpenter & Prichard, 321) and is “a much-sought-after volume by the many collectors” of his illustrations (Quayle, 87). This is the deluxe issue of the 1912 enlarged third edition, bound in vellum rather than the cloth binding found on the trade issue. This edition was a faithful republication of the 1906 first edition, enlarged with a new color frontispiece and seven full-page black-and-white drawings not present in that 1906 edition. (A second edition was issued in 1910, with only 24 of the plates, making this third edition more desirable than the second, and possibly moreso than the first as well, as that edition had the plates bound in at the rear following the text.) This third edition was not issued in a signed limited edition, making this signed deluxe copy particularly scarce and desirable. Riall, 114. Latimore & Haskell, 40. Plates fine, a bit of tape residue to front pastedown; vellum with mild wear. Near-fine condition. Scarce and quite desirable signed by Rackham.
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