4to. 145 pp., [2 Table des Contes & Table des Illustrations], 27 colour plates illustrated by Edmond Dulac, original blue wrappers fitted in ornate blue folder and a matching slip case, title printed on spine label, each page decorated with ornamental frame, Limited and numbered edition to 1500 copies of which this copy is Number 1215, copy clean & in very good condition, H. Piazza, Paris, no date, [ca. 1919].

Synopsis

Edmund Dulac (1882-1953) was a French British naturalised magazine illustrator, book illustrator and stamp designer. Born in Toulouse he studied law, but later turned to the study of art at the École des Beaux-Arts. He moved to London early in the 20th century and in 1905 received his first commission to illustrate the novels of the Brontë Sisters. During World War I, Dulac produced relief books and when after the war the deluxe children’s book market shrank he turned to magazine illustrations among other ventures. He designed banknotes during World War II and postage stamps, most notably those that heralded the beginning of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign. He then became a regular contributor to The Pall Mall Magazine, and joined the London Sketch Club, which introduced him to the foremost book and magazine illustrators of the day. Through these he began an association with the Leicester Galleries and Hodder & Stoughton; the gallery commissioned illustrations from Dulac which they sold in an annual exhibition, while publishing rights to the paintings were taken up by Hodder & Stoughton for reproduction in illustrated gift books, publishing one book a year. Some of the books produced under this arrangement by Dulac include Stories from The Arabian Nights (1907) with 50 colour images; an edition of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1908) with 40 colour illustrations; The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1909) with 20 colour images; The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales (1910); Stories from Hans Christian Andersen (1911); The Bells and Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe (1912) with 28 colour images and many monotone illustrations; and Princess Badoura (1913).