Aucassin and Nicolete

London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1917.
First Edition. Signed by Illustrator

24cm x 18cm. 120, [4] pages, with 13 mounted colour plates, 23 pages of printed music, decorative borders, initials, and intertextual ornaments throughout. Publisher’s full vellum.

Copy no. 1 of 125 numbered copies, signed by Evelyn Paul. An elaborate medieval-revival illumination of the anonymous chantefable, translated from the Old French by Michael West, with music by Horace Mansion. Evelyn Paul’s decorations draw on Pre-Raphaelite, Gothic Revival, and Arts and Crafts models, combining ornamental borders, initials, and binding into one of the more distinctive British gift-book productions of the period. The colour plates are by American illustrator Main Rousseau Bocher (1890-1976), then active between New York and Paris, shortly before the launch of the couture career for which he would become internationally known. After working as a fashion illustrator for Harper’s Bazaar and later as editor of French Vogue, he established the Paris house of Mainbocher in 1929, becoming the first American to achieve lasting success as a Paris couturier.

Very minor bump to spine tail. Very minor soiling. Near Fine Condition.

AU$1,200