ARTHUR RACKHAM’S PEER GYNT - DE-LUXE LEATHER BOUND EDITION

The first edition thus of this Rackham edition in the scarce Publisher's Special Morocco binding with gilt titling on the spine and front board which also bears the design present on the usual cloth binding, but in this case in gilt. Small 4to. 1936. Harrap. Top edge gilt and decorated endpapers. Twelve lovely full page plates by Rackham with titled tissue guards. An unmarked and seemingly unread fresh bright copy with no foxing whatsoever. The only minor flaw is slight irregularity/or very minor chipping of the top and fore edge of the front free endpaper. See the last image provided. Still a superior and most attractive copy.

For the 1936 edition of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt illustrated by Arthur Rackham and published by George G. Harrap & Co., the exact limitation number for the special publisher's Morocco leather binding was never publicly documented. While the trade cloth edition was printed in large quantities and the signed/limited vellum edition was strictly limited to 460 copies, Harrap's special Morocco leather bindings are much more elusive. Harrap frequently pulled small batches from the standard trade sheets to be bound in deluxe full leather for the gift market. Bibliographers and rare book experts note that these "publisher's special leather bindings" typically ranged from only 50 to 150 copies and this can be verified by searching copies of this title offered for sale online. These leather bound copies were all issued without a dustwrapper.