1909 First Edition - Gulliver’s Travels colour-illustrated by Arthur Rackham

Author: Jonathan Swift.
Title: Gulliver’s Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World.
Illustrator: Arthur Rackham.
Publisher: London: J. M. Dent & Co.; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1909. First Arthur Rackham colour-illustrated edition.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 9 x 6.5 inches.
Pages: xv, 291 pages.
Binding: Very good original pictorial cloth binding, decorated in gilt-brown on the upper cover and spine, with light rubbing and toning, as shown. Binding firm and attractive. Dark-tinted upper edge. Protected in a removable mylar cover. 
Content: Very good. Pages are very clean overall, with toning and foxing mainly to the illustrated/endpaper areas, as shown. A well-preserved copy internally.
Illustrations: Complete with the full-page colour illustrations by Arthur Rackham, including the frontispiece and 11 further colour plates. Illustrated endpapers also by Rackham.

The book: A beautiful 1909 Rackham edition of Jonathan Swift’s classic satire, here presented in a handsome large-format illustrated edition by Dent and Dutton. The publisher’s note explains that many of Rackham’s designs had appeared as line drawings in an earlier 1899 edition, but were revised, worked over, coloured by the artist, and supplemented with new designs for this edition. Rackham’s imaginative and slightly grotesque style is especially well suited to Swift’s strange voyages, from Lilliput to Brobdingnag and beyond.

The illustrator: Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) was one of the most celebrated illustrators of the Golden Age of British book illustration. Known for his delicate line, muted colour palette, and fantastical imagination, Rackham brought a distinctive sense of wonder and strangeness to works of fairy tale, folklore, and literary fantasy. His interpretation of Gulliver’s Travels remains one of the most attractive illustrated editions of Swift’s masterpiece.