1908 First Edition Illustrated by Rackham - Shakespeare Midsummer Night's Dream
The celebrated 1908 First Rackham Illustrated Edition of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer-Night’s Dream, complete with all forty luminous tipped-in colour plates and Rackham’s abundant black-and-white drawings, preserved in exceptionally attractive near fine original gilt cloth.
Author: William Shakespeare.
Title: A Midsummer-Night’s Dream.
Publisher: London: William Heinemann; New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1908.
Edition: First Edition illustrated by Arthur Rackham, First Trade Edition.
Language: English.
Pages: 134 pages.
Size: 10 x 7.5 inches.
Binding: Very good, near fine original publisher’s tan cloth binding, beautifully decorated and lettered in gilt to the front board and spine, with Rackham’s pictorial tree design to the upper cover. The binding remains remarkably attractive, with only light age toning and minor wear, chiefly to the spine and extremities, as shown. Hinges sound and binding firm. Protected in a removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good, near fine content, bright, tight and clean, with only light age toning and occasional minor signs of age. Complete, with the plates and tissue guards exceptionally well preserved, as shown.
Illustrations: Magnificently illustrated by Arthur Rackham with 40 tipped-in colour plates, including the frontispiece, mounted on art paper and protected by captioned tissue guards, together with numerous black-and-white line drawings and decorative illustrations throughout the text. Complete as issued. The forty colour plates are a defining feature of this celebrated first Rackham edition.
Estimate: USD 600–800.
The book:
First published in this lavishly illustrated form in 1908, A Midsummer-Night’s Dream is one of the great achievements of Arthur Rackham’s career and one of the defining illustrated books of the Edwardian Golden Age. Shakespeare’s enchanted woodland, mischievous fairies, confused lovers and comic transformations provided an almost ideal setting for Rackham’s imagination. His delicate line, subdued colours, gnarled trees and strange, playful fairy creatures transform the play into a visual world at once beautiful, humorous and faintly uncanny.
This is the First Trade Edition with Rackham’s illustrations, retaining the handsome original gilt pictorial cloth and all forty tipped-in colour plates. Rackham’s interpretation became one of the most enduring visual conceptions of Shakespeare’s fairy world and remains among the illustrator’s most sought-after books. Contemporary and specialist catalogues consistently identify the 1908 Heinemann edition as the first edition with Rackham’s illustrations.
The author:
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor whose works form a cornerstone of world literature. Written in the 1590s, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is among his best-loved comedies, intertwining the adventures of four young lovers, a troupe of amateur actors and the fairy court of Oberon and Titania within an enchanted Athenian forest.
Its shifting boundaries between waking and dreaming, human and supernatural, order and mischief have inspired generations of artists and illustrators. Few interpretations have become as closely associated with the play as Rackham’s 1908 images.
The illustrator:
Arthur Rackham (1867–1939) was one of the foremost illustrators of the Golden Age of British book illustration. His distinctive combination of delicate pen work, muted watercolour and fantastical natural forms made him particularly suited to fairy tales, legends and literary fantasy.
His illustrations for A Midsummer-Night’s Dream are widely regarded as one of the high points of his career. The forty colour plates, together with his profuse line drawings, move effortlessly between ethereal beauty, grotesque humour and the mysterious darkness of the enchanted wood, making this edition one of the quintessential Rackham books.