Increasingly scarce in the pictorial cloth
Campbell, W. D. & Stratton, Helen [Illus.] ~ Beyond the Border
Sole UK Printing : Archibald Constable and Co., Westminster: 1898
8vo., publisher’s green cloth, lettered and prettily blocked in full gilt to upper board and spine; featuring the striking design of a witch dropping frogs into a cauldron, along with a series of cats to the backstrip; all edges gilt; featuring a proliferation of 167 illustrations throughout, including headpieces, chapter headings and full-page captioned line drawings by Helen Stratton; THE BOOK a very good plus example, a little pushed to spine ends with a small dark stain to the lower corner of text block; internally clean and bright, save for some minor browning and offsetting to endleaves; and a couple of scattered spots; hinges lightly cracked, with some webbing showing, but holding firm; embossed W. H. Library stamp to the front free endpaper. The book is protected in a removable Mylar archival cover. Sole UK edition. A collection of short stories based on Scottish folklore and superstitions, including among them The Three Green Men of Glen Nevis and Macquorquodale. Collected together by the Scottish Architect and enthusiastic collector of unusual and historical objects Walter Douglas Campbell, who during his life counted among his acquisitions a fragment of bone of King Robert the Bruce, and the Island of Innis Chonam, on which he built a stately manor house. The book is wonderfully accompanied by a series of images provided by the illustrator Helen Isobel Mansfield Ramsey Stratton, an artist who was associated particularly with children’s books and fairy tales. Born in 1867, she attended art school in Kensington, London, where she became influenced by the Glasgow School of Art, and the Art Nouveau movements. At other times influenced by the Pre-Raphelites, she remained unmarried, living and working as an illustrator in London. She became known towards the end of the 19th century for her bold and imaginative pen and ink illustrations, with her first major commercial success being Songs for Little People by Norman Gale (1896). The present work was the third time her drawings had been published, following which she reached, arguably, the peak of her career with a series of over four hundred drawings for a deluxe edition of Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales, published by George Newness in a fine quarto edition. She also collaborated with Heath Robinson to produce hundreds of drawings for the Arabian Nights Entertainments, originally published in parts. Predominantly working in black and white, she also experimented with colour; producing watercolour illustrations for H. C. Herbertson’s Heroic Legends (1908) and Jean Lang’s A Book of Myths (1915). An elusive title. This edition increasingly scarce in the pictorial cloth.
BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Very good +
£650