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Springtide of Life, The
London : William Heinemann, 1918. Item #03589
First Trade Edition in the Original Printed Dust Jacket
[RACKHAM, Arthur, illustrator]. SWINBURNE, Algernon Charles. The Springtide of Life. Poems of Childhood by Algernon Charles Swinburne. With a Preface by Edmund Gosse. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. London: William Heinemann, [1918].
First trade edition. Octavo (9 3/4 x 7 3/16 inches; 248 x 183 mm). Eight full-page color plates with tissue guards. Fifty-two black and white text illustrations.
Publisher's green cloth, front cover and spine decoratively tooled and lettered in gilt, pictorial endpapers, top edge stained green. Inner hinges very slightly cracked but firm. A bright and near fine copy in the original green printed dust jacket.
"[Rackham's] drawings for Swinburne's poems of childhood, The Springtide of Life…attracted the admiration of Edmund Gosse, who expressed his appreciation in a preface and told Rackham personally (18th October 1918: 'This volume will not merely be the best book of the present art-season, but a joy to all sensitive people for years and years to come'" (Hudson, Arthur Rackham His Life and Work, p. 108).
"As the close of his life approached, Swinburne frequently expressed his intention to extract from his various volumes those poems which were addressed to children, or were descriptive of child-life, and to publish them in a separate collection. He died without having found occasion to carry out this plan, and he left no directions with regard to the way in which it ought to be done… One reason why Swinburne never brought out such a collection was his failure to find an artist who could interpret to his satisfaction the simplicity and freshness of his verses. We are fortunate in having secured, in Mr. Arthur Rackham, one whose delicate and romantic fancy is in sensitive harmony with Swinburne's, and who understands, no less than he did, how "Heaven lies about us in our infancy." (Edmund Gosse),
Latimore and Haskell, p. 48. Riall, p. 133.
Price: $450.00