William Shakespeare

Finely bound deluxe copy of Rackham's illustrated Midsummer-Night's Dream.

• William Shakespeare (English).
• Illustrated by Arthur Rackham (English).
• London and New York: William Heinemann, and Doubleday, Page & Co., 1908.
• 134 text pages.
• Large octavo.
• Includes 40 mounted color plates and 30 other decorations.
• Deluxe edition of 1,000 copies, this is number 747.
• Signed by Rackham on the limitation page. 
• Bound in full red morocco gilt by Lewis & Harris Bookbinders Ltd., Bath, England, with pictorial colored inlay on the upper cover, silk endpapers, gilt edges.
• Housed in cloth clamshell case.

"Rackham cast his spell over the play," notes Derek Hudson. "His drawings superseded the work of all his predecessors from Gilbert to Abbey and for fifty years have enriched the imagination...Here he excelled especially in landscape, and in reconciling dream and reality, giving himself to the luxury of rich detail with a rare generosity." A fine copy of an admirable Rackham classic, in a bespoke binding designed and executed by Chris Lewis, among Bayntun-Riviere's most talented finishers in the mid-20th century before starting his own bindery with Derek Harris.

Hudson, pp. 78 et seq.