The Romance Of King Arthur And His Knights Of The Round Table. Abridged From Malory's Morte D'arthur. Rackham, Arthur (Illus.); Pollard, Alfred W.

Signed limited edition, number 370 of 500 copies signed by the artist. The Romance of King Arthur was a wartime book, commissioned to reflect the nation's mood of patriotism and military endeavour. In preparing for the commission, Rackham turned to his own copy of Beardsley's Morte D'Arthur. Like Beardsley's illustrations, Rackham's designs have a stark black and white appearance, though Rackham "cannot resist the occasional wryly humorous touch such as a barking dog or a jester's head" (Hamilton pp. 111-112). A review of this edition in The Bookman (December 1917) stated that "the beauty and bizarre loveliness of the tales seem to have passed by some subtle alchemy into Mr Arthur Rackham's fanciful, whimsical, imaginative drawings in colour and black-and-white." and, in conclusion, "this is an ideal edition of a very characteristic old English classic". Latimore & Haskell, pp. 47-48; Riall, p. 130. James Hamilton, Arthur Rackham: A Life with Illustration, 1995. Quarto. Original parchment, spine and upper cover lettered and with pictorial decorations in gilt, top edge gilt. Colour frontispiece and 15 colour plates mounted on heavy white paper, with captioned tissue-guards, black and white illustrations in the text, all by Rackham. Some uniform soiling to binding, head and foot of spine a little bumped, occasional foxing and browning, short tear to front free endpaper: a very good copy.