Le Livre des Ballades

Paris: L'Edition D'Art H. Piazza, 1920. Limited to 300 copies with an extra-suite of (13 of 14) mounted color plates, this being copy no. 256 of a total edition of 1300. Quarto (11 7/8 x 9 1/8; 303 x 232 mm). Collating 108, [2]. Publisher's original pictorial tan wrappers. Fourteen mounted color plates with captioned tissue guards. Headpieces, typographical devices. The duplicate color plate "La France" is missing from the additional suite. Otherwise a Near Fine copy.

First edition in French of the Rackham-illustrated Some British Ballads (1919) including additional black and white vignettes. Paul Fort translated the original ballads and there are some included that are not found in the English edition.

Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) is perhaps the most acclaimed and influential illustrators of the Golden Age of Illustration. A prolific artist even from his youth, Rackham got his start as an illustrator working for the Westminster Budget Newspaper (1892). Over the next few years, he took on more and more commissions for children's books, hitting his career high in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Rackham turned his imaginative pen to every classic-from Shakespeare to Dickens to Poe.

Latimore and Haskell 50-51. Riall 137.