The Pied Piper of Hamelin
London: George C. Harrap & Co., 1934. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham in four full-color illustrations, with numerous in black and white. Signed/Limited edition. Publisher's limp vellum, titled in gilt, in partial publisher's tissue jacket, housed in publisher's slipcase, paper title label. 44, [1]pp. 9.75" x 6.25" Some waving/bubbling to endpapers, with light subsequent waving to pages, overall very clean internally, limp vellum clean and bright, still overall near fine in good only, chipped publisher's tissue dust jacket, in mylar cover in near fine publisher's slipcase with some toning extremities and mild repair to upper seam. Item #241725
RACKHAM'S RATS RUN RAMPANT
Reaching back into medieval legend, the story of the Pied Piper has endured through centuries of reinvention: carried first by oral tradition, then preserved in stained glass, chronicles, and later fairy-tale collections. Johannes von Zimmern’s sixteenth-century account appears to be the first to introduce the now-inseparable plague of rats, a detail later carried forward by the Brothers Grimm and, most memorably in English, by Robert Browning, whose spirited verse finds an ideal visual counterpart in Arthur Rackham’s eerie yet luminous illustrations. Whether born of historical tragedy or folkloric invention, the tale remains endlessly adaptable.
This signed limited edition carries the Piper's long afterlife neatly into the twentieth century, one of only 400 signed and numbered copied issued for sale, this being number 337, signed by Rackham on the limitation page.
Price: $1,250.00