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Aesop's Fables
London: George G. Harrap and Co. Ltd, 1936. Item #06629
The Fox and the Crow - Gooden’s Masterpiece of Modern Book Illustration
A Signed Limited Aesop in Vellum, Finely Printed at Cambridge
[GOODEN, Stephen, illustrator]. AESOP. Aesop’s Fables. Translated by Sir Roger L'Estrange Kt. with plates & decorations by Stephen Gooden. London: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., 1936.
Limited to 525 numbered copies, this being No. 266, signed by Stephen Gooden.
Small folio (10 x 7 inches; 254 x 178 mm.). 311, [1, limitation] pp. Finely printed letterpress by Cambridge University Press under Walter Lewis. Copper plates engraved by A. Alexander & Sons, London. Illustrated with twelve superb copper-engraved plates, including a vignette title-page with original tissue guard.
Publisher’s full cream vellum, covers ruled and decorated in gilt, upper cover with central gilt fox, spine with five shallow bands decorated and lettered in gilt, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt. Housed in the original pink/gray mottled paper-covered slipcase, printed spine label with matching serial number in ink. A fine copy in a near fine slipcase.
This 1936 Harrap Aesop stands among the great illustrated books of the interwar period - a harmonious collaboration of classical text, elegant typography and masterful copper engraving.
Stephen Gooden, one of the finest British engravers of his generation, brings to Aesop a line that is precise yet lively,
classical yet modern and perfectly suited to the moral clarity and wit of the fables
Gooden’s animals - foxes, crows, lions, and asses - are rendered with quiet authority and restrained humor, avoiding caricature in favor of timeless archetype.
Price: $950.00