"SOFT COLORING, HUMOR AND FANTASTIC BEAUTY": SIGNED LIMITED EDITION OF GULLIVER’S TRAVELS, ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR RACKHAM

(RACKHAM, Arthur) SWIFT, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels Into Several Remote Nations Of The World. London and New York: J.M. Dent and E.P. Dutton, 1909. Quarto, original off-white cloth gilt, pictorial endpapers, top edge gilt, uncut, original rose ribbon ties. $3500.

Signed limited edition, number 564 of 750 copies signed by illustrator Arthur Rackham, of Swift’s sharp, satirical masterpiece, with 13 mounted full-page color plates, two full-page black-and-white illustrations, and seven in-text black-and-white vignettes.

In a contemporary review, the New York Times praised "the soft coloring, the humor and fantastic beauty" of Rackham's illustrations for Swift's most famous work, "at once a favorite book of children and a summary of bitter scorn for mankind" (DNB). This deluxe signed edition is "a revised edition of the work originally published in 1900, with some additional illustrations and others redrawn and coloured," boasting an extra color plate not found in the trade edition (Hudson, 168). With spine stamped by Dutton and without J.M. Dent publisher's monogram on front board, indicating that this copy was one of those intended for U.S. sale. Latimore & Haskell, 32-33. Riall, 91. Hamilton, 188.

Plates and text fine, mild soiling to pale cloth and faint spotting to spine foot, corners rubbed, ribbon ties partly perished. A very nice copy.