Edition limited to seventy-five copies: 217 pages, wood engraved frontispiece title and other engravings in the text and as chapter head and tail pieces, full blue morocco, titled gilt on the spine (spine slightly faded), all edges gilt, a very good copy.
The colophon reads:
This edition is limited to seventy-five copies of which seventy are for sale.Each copy contains a proof of one the engravings specially pulled on Japanese paper and signed by the author.
This copy is number 65
Robert Gibbings (1889-1958) was an Irish artist and author who played a vital role in the revival of wood engraving in the twentieth century.Born in Cork, he overcame opposition from his family to study at the Slade and the Central School of Art and Design.During the First World War he served in the Royal Munster Fusiliers and was wounded at Gallipoli before eventually being invalided out of the army in 1918.He was a founder member of the Society of Wood Engravers and owned and ran the Golden Cockerel Press from 1924-1933. Gibbings illustrated numerous books on travel and natural history, including Charles Darwin’s ‘Voyage of HMS Beagle’, and wrote a series of bestselling river books, notably ‘Sweet Thames run Softly’.
He did a huge amount to popularise the subject of natural history, travelling extensively through Polynesia, Bermuda and the Red Sea to gather inspiration for his work.He was the first man to draw underwater – the illustrations of which filled his Penguin classic ‘Blue Angels and Whales’ – and was one of the first natural history presenters on the BBC.
(http://www.robertgibbings.org/)
- Binding Condition: Very good
- Overall Condition: Very good
- Size: 8vo (220 x 140 mm)
- Sold By: Clarke's Africana & Rare Books
- Contact Person: Paul Mills
- Country: South Africa
- Email: [email protected]
- Telephone: 021 794 0600
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