55
204
204.RACKHAM, Arthur (illustrator). Henrik IBSEN (playwright). Peer Gynt. Philadelphia; J.B. Lippincott Co. 1936.
£425
4to. Original orange cloth gilt, top edge orange, pictorial endpapers, uncut edges, preserved in pictorial wrapper; pp. [iv], 5-255; illustrated with 12 striking coloured plates and line-drawings throughout; a fine copy in a near fine, unclipped, dustwrapper ($4.00) with a few very short, and almost invisible, closed tears to extremities, now neatly repaired and strengthened with onlaid paper tabs to the reverse.
First U.S. edition illustrated by Rackham; issued in the same year as the
U.K.first.
205
205. RACKHAM, Arthur (illustrator). Richard WAGNER. The Ring of the Niblung. London: William Heinemann Ltd. 1939. £298
4to. Original mid-blue cloth stamped in black, pictorial endpapers; pp. [ii], 3-159; [x], 3-181 (two volumes bound as one); illustrated with a total of 48 coloured plates by Rackham; a fresh copy with a little light general rubbing and a couple of minor marks to cloth; internally near fine with just the faintest trace of foxing to prelims.
First edition thus, combining the two separate volumes of Rackham’s illustrated Ring Cycle, The Rhinegold and the Valkyrie and Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods, in one volume.
‘IN 1817 THE HISTORY OF JAVA REPRESENTED A PIONEER STUDY; TODAY IT STANDS AS ONE OF THE CLASSICS OF SOUTH-EAST ASIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY’
206.RAFFLES, Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley. The History of Java. London: Cox and Baylis for Black, Parbury, and Allen, and John Murray, 1817.
£7,500
4to (263 x 210mm), 2 volumes. Contemporary full diced russia, boards with borders of gilt and blind rules enclosing deep decorative rolls, spines gilt in compartments, lettered directly in 2, others decorated in gilt and blind, all edges marbled, modern marbled endpapers; pp. I: xlviii, 479, [1 (blank)]; II: vi, 288, [3 (letterpress tables)], [1 (blank)], cclx, [2 (publisher’s advertisement dated May 1817, verso blank)]; engraved frontispieces retaining tissue guards, 10 hand- coloured aquatint plates, some by William Daniell, 42 engraved or aquatint plates by J. Walker et al., one folding, 9 engraved plates of alphabets and inscriptions by J. Swaine, one plate printed recto-and- verso with engraved music, most plates retaining tissue guards, 2 engraved maps by J. Walker, one hand-coloured, folding and laid down onto linen, and 2 folding letterpress tables; 9 engraved vignettes by J. Walker, J. Mitan, et al. and letterpress tables in the text; half-titles; skilfully rebacked and recornered, retaining original spines, spines slightly cracked and chipped, some variable light spotting and browning, some light damp-marking, a few plates trimmed touching captions or imprints, short marginal tear on II, [A]4, l. II, 2I1 creased and torn, lower edges of quires II, 2e-f creased on lower margins causing short tears, tears
skilfully repaired, bound without one of the 2 advertisement ll. called for by Abbey, nonetheless a very good set retaining the half-titles; provenance: J.M. Richardson, 23 Cornhill, London (active as a bookseller through the first quarter of the nineteenth century, retained bookseller’s ticket on upper pastedown of vol. I) — Robert Sinclair (early ownership signatures on titles) — erratum corrected in pencil by an early hand on I, p. 95, early pencilled marginal annotations on I, p.261 and II, p. [2]ii — John Scott, Finnart House, Greenock, Renfrew (retained engraved armorial bookplates on upper pastedowns; gift to:) — Sinclair Scott (inscriptions on versos of frontispieces ‘To Sinclair Scott From his Father John Scott 12th April 1850’).
First edition. Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781-1826) achieved much in his short life and his name will always be associated with British interests in the East. Posted to Penang in 1805 by the East India Company, Raffles quickly became fluent in Malay and gained much knowledge of the region and its peoples. When Lord Minto began his campaign against the Dutch in Java, he selected Raffles as his adviser and ‘with his customary industry and attention to detail, Raffles amassed voluminous information, sent agents to Madura, Bali, and Java, and won over the sultan of Palembang’ (ODNB). Minto successfully took the island from the Dutch in September 1811, and promptly appointed Raffles Lieutenant-Governor, a position which he held until the restoration of the island to the Dutch in 1816. Certain of the decisions he had taken while in office were criticised and censured by his colleagues and superiors, particularly the new Governor-General who had replaced Raffles’ patron Minto, and Raffles was transferred to the East India Company’s residency at Bencoolen: ‘Dispirited and ill, Raffles decided first to go to England and left Java on 25 March 1816, calling at St Helena, where he was disillusioned at meeting the exiled former emperor Napoleon, whom he had hitherto admired. Despite arriving home, in his own words “wretchedly thin and sallow”, in October 1816 he embarked on a two-volume History of Java, which was written and published within seven months [...] On 20 March 1817 Raffles was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, which brought him into contact with distinguished scientists and dignitaries, such as the duke and duchess of Somerset. On 10 April his History of Java was published, receiving mixed reviews and betraying hasty composition but causing a stir as the first English-language history. Raffles found himself lionized in London society, and from about this time he assumed the name of Stamford in
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