LIMITED EDITIONS CLUB LIMITED EDITIONS CLUB
 Every one of these handsome books, published between 1929 and mid-century, offers what the LEC CREDO celebrates as "a text of quality, beauty of illustration, [and] artistic and technical excellence of presentation." ALL WORKS are giants or simply beloved in the Western tradition of humane letters, the texts interpreted by introduction-writers and translators often provocatively chosen. Designers and presses were thoughtfully selected; bindings are pleasing and often witty — a favorite here is The Call of the Wild done up in a cloth binding of black and green checked lumberjack flannel!
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Goosing the Gothic
Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey. [Baltimore]: Printed for the members of The Limited Editions Club, by the Garamond Press, 1971. Folio (27.8 cm, 11"). [4 (1 blank)], v–xi, [5 (3 blank)], 3–210, [3 (2 blank)] pp.; 12 plts. 
• Bibliography of the Fine Books of the Limited Editions Club 1929–1985, 436. Binding as above, clean and unworn, in original glassine wrapper and slipcase; wrapper chipped at head of spine and with small edge tears; spine and top of slipcase sunned, back of case with a small, faint spot of soiling, spine label with some soiling, small scrapes, and a small
chip at bottom edge. A fine, very attractive copy. 
Heroine
Catherine might have liked the cover fabric here as dress material.
Mr. Brecht! Bring Down This“Fourth Wall” Brecht, Bertolt. The Threepenny opera. New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1982. 4to. Frontis., [10 (5 blank)], 11–155, [5 (1 blank)] pp.; 12 plts. (incl. frontis.).
Binding: Full black linen, stamped in gold on the front cover from a design by Levine. The slipcase is covered with black paper and bears a gilt title on the spine.
The colophon is signed by both the designer and the illustrator. This offering includes the monthly newsletter.
Binding, slipcase, and illustrations all properly evoke the grittiness of the London underworld.
• Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 529. Bound as above, in original glassine wrapper and slipcase; wrapper with tiny nicks and chips in a couple of places. A fine copy, in a fine slipcase. (22080)
Officina Bodoni
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward. The last days of Pompeii. Verona: Printed for the members of The Limited Editions Club, 1956. Small folio. [1 (blank)] p., [1 (blank)] f., [4 (1 blank)], v–xxi, [3 (1 blank)], 3–513, [3 (1 blank)] pp., [1 (blank)] f., [1 (blank)] p.
Click the interior images above for enlargements. 
The book is illustrated with woodcuts by Kurt Craemer, each one based on a motif he saw at Pompeii. The design is by Giovanni Madersteig who chose a monotype Bembo font; the printing was done on Muslianco paper (with deckle edges) at the Officina Bodoni. The binding is full light grey Italian linen printed with an overall “Pompeian” design in dark grey; the red spine label is stamped in gold.
This edition is limited to 1500 copies, and this offering includes the monthly newsletter and mailing notice. The colophon is signed by Giovanni Madersteig and Kurt Craemer.
• Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929?1985, 270. A very good copy (spine a little darkened) with the slipcase.
Dickens
Goes to
AMERICA
Dickens,
Charles. American notes for general circulation. Avon,
Conn.: Made for the Members of the Limited Editions Club, 1975. Tall 8vo. Frontis.,
xiii, [3], 272, [2] pp.; 8 plts.
Click the interior images for enlargements. Binding: Quarter brown calf over grey-paper sides, with a gilt-stamped black leather title-label on the spine. The sides are decorated with line drawings by Houlihan in dark grey and framed in dark red. This is copy no. 1672 of 2000 printed, and is signed by the artist on the colophon.
• Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 484. Binding as above, clean and unworn, in original glassine wrapper and slipcase; a streak of soiling to the latter; wrapper chipped at head of spine and with small edge tears. The club's monthly newsletter and mailing notice are not present. (21909)
Watercolors Abound France, Anatole. At the sign of the Queen Pédauque. Chicago: Printed for the members of The Limited Editions Club by The Lakeside Press, 1933. Tall 4to. Frontis., [5], v–xii, 174, [2] pp., [3 (blank)] ff.; 19 plts.
Click the interior image for an enlargement. The binding is full blue linen stamped in gold on the spine and front cover, with additional ornamentation to both covers in deep pink. Top edges are gilt, others deckle; one leaf is left unopened.
• Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 49. Binding as above; spine sunned and with thumbnail sized dark patch at head and foot. Some cracking along the top edges and spine of the slipcase, which is still sturdy; spine of case sunned, paper label a little soiled. Pages clean; no ownership markings or labels. A very good, clean copy. (22313)
Magic Realism & Surrealism García Márquez, Gabriel. One hundred years of solitude.
[New York]: The Limited Editions Club, 1982. Folio. Frontis., xii, [2], 348, [3 (2 blank)] pp.; 8 plts.
Click the interior images for enlargements. This edition is limited to 2,000 copies, was translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabassa, and carries an introduction by Alastair Reid. The colophon page is
signed by both Rabassa and Reid, and also by the illustrator Rafael Ferrer.
Rafael Ferrer, a native Puerto Rican, created eight full-page oil paintings and 25 in-text ink drawings, well reproduced here — plus a full-page original graphic, laid in at the back (i.e., not bound into the book) and most suitable for framing. Ferrer's images, with their bold lines and colors, often pack an emotional punch. His style belongs to the New Image school of painting, which bears the unmistakable influences of neo-expressionism, surrealism, and Dada.
Binding: Three-quarter leather, stamped in gold on the spine, over straw-colored textured Chinese silk.
This offering includes the monthly newsletter.
• Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 532. Binding as above. Book clean and bright, in slipcase with small scrapes at the lower spine and at the mouth. Fine, in a near fine slipcase. (21791)
Smart
as Paint!
Howells, William Dean. The rise of Silas Lapham. Philadelphia: The Limited Editions Club, 1961. Small folio. [2 (1 blank)], frontis. spilling over upon the title-page, [1], v–xiii, [3 (2 blank)], 3–365, [3 (2 blank)] pp., [1 (blank)] f., [1 (blank)] p.; 15 plts.
Richard Ellis handled the design for this edition (limited to 1500 copies), using a linotype Caledonia font and an assortment of other fonts — Fournier, Waverley, Perpetua — printed by The Beck Engraving Company in Philadelphia. The binding is full natural buckram, gold-stamped on the spine, and printed on all sides with a four-color panorama of Boston's Beacon Street. Mimi Korach, who has signed the colophon, created the cover illustration as well as the 15 full-page and the numerous in-text color paintings; she also created the frontispiece illustration of a four-horse carriage leaving the premises of Lapham's Vermont-based paint company.
The monthly newsletter and mailing card are included with this offering.
• Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 324. Spine a little darkened; in the slipcase, which is sunned but sound.
For
COMMERCE / TRADE /
STRIKINGLY Illustrated La Motte-Fouque, F. de la. Undine. New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1930. 4to. vii, [1], 141, [5] pp.; illus.
• Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club, 10. Binding as above; a clean, fresh copy showing next to no wear, in a rubbed slipcase with the spine reinforced some time ago with tape. (11241)
ATTRACTIVE Wood-EngravingsMann, Thomas. Death in Venice. Lunenburg, VT: Stinehour Press for the Limited Editions Club, 1972. 8vo (27.5 cm, 10.75"). Frontis., 106, [3] pp.; illus.
Binding: Publisher's quarter red morocco, done by the Tapley-Rutter Company, with marbled paper-covered sides, spine gilt extra, in original slipcase.
• Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club, 444. Binding as above, lower corners a touch rubbed. Slipcase with spine and upper edges sunned; a streak of soiling to the former.
For
BOOKS IN GERMAN, click here.
Signed by
Arthur Miller & Leonard Baskin Miller, Arthur. Death of a salesman: certain private conversations in two acts and a requiem ... With five etchings by Leonard Baskin. New York City: The Limited Editions Club, 1984. 4to. [12], 5–164, [3 (1 blank)] pp.; 5 plts.
Click the images for enlargements. signed by both the playwright and the illustrator at the colophon.
The binding is full rusty-brown Nigerian goat, stamped in gold on the spine. The etchings are by Leonard Baskin, a series of five portraits tracing the downward spiral of Willy Loman — a powerful complement to Miller's portrait of a salesman at the end of his career and at the end of his rope! The plates, printed by Bruce Chandler, are each protected by a brown paper tissue guard. The book is designed by Benjamin Schiff, who chose a Bulmer font for the text.
This offering includes the monthly newsletter but not the mailing notice.
• Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 540. Binding as above. One of the tissue guards is loose but otherwise undamaged. Fine, in the original slipcase. A handsome production of one of the most performed plays in the world! (21754)
With Printed Music —
Edmund Dulac's Last
Project
Milton, John, & Henry Lawes. The masque of Comus. Cambridge: Printed for the members of The Limited Editions Club at the University Press, 1954. 4to. [1 (blank)] p., [1 (blank)] f., [3 (2 blank)], frontis., [6 (2 blanks)], 3–59 pp., [1 (blank)] p., 12 pp. of printed music, [2 (1 blank)] pp., [1 (blank)] f., [1 (blank)] p.; 5 plts.
The illustrations are full-page watercolors, six in all, by Edmund Dulac. The LEC Bibliography says they were "printed in process offset," but this is in error: The mailing notice asserts they were "reproduced in six printings by the Sun Engraving Company," and a member of the family that owned that enterprise observes to us that it did not in fact have offset presses—while it was noted for its color letterpress productions, including the original (1940) Szyk Haggadah.
The design is by John Dreyfus, who chose a monotype Bembo font printed by the University of Cambridge Press; the engraving of the music was done by G.T. Friend. The binding is quarter gold-stamped vellum with marbled paper sides; top edges are gilt. Since Hubert Foss and Edmund Dulac both died during the production of this book, a one-page photo-print from The Times of London's obituary section summarizing the achievements of these two men has been included with this offering. The monthly letter and mailing notice are also present.
• Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 250. Two tiny stains on the fore-edge, a penstroke marking p. 54, and two other pen-point spots. With the original slipcase.
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II . . . |