item 2 Henry Sotheran Ltd 2 Sackville Street Piccadilly London W1S 3DP tel: 020 7439 6151 email: [email protected] web: sotherans.co.uk FASCIST-ERA PRINTING 2. [ABC]. An Italian educational wall alphabet. Circa 1942-1945. £1,950 A total of 31 educational classroom wall plaques, each 246 x 345mm, on thick card, with rounded corners, forming a complete pictorial Italian alphabet (J, K, W, X and Y are not used in the Italian alphabet, and H here is unillustrated) alongside 10 further plaques featuring trigraphs (Ch, Gh, Gn, Gr, Sc, Sc, St, Tr) and duplicate examples for G - gatto and C - cane); some overall marking, foxing, and dusting, with pin holes, and associated staining, to the corners; occasional edge and corner wear and old glue marks to the versos; 3 with a couple of manuscript letters in pen to the margins in a child’s hand; 2 with heavier browning; Sc - sciatore - with some surface damage to the skier’s 1. [ABC]. JOB (illustrator). Jules LE MAITRE hat, Tr - treno - with the small “fascio littorio” symbol (author). ABC, Petits Contes. To u rs , M a i s o n M a m e . on the front of the locomotive partially hidden by [1933]. £168 over-colouring; B - bandiera (featuring the Italian flag) displaying vestiges of glued paper to cover the ensign 4to. Original red cloth-backed pictorial boards of the Royal House of Savoy, which was sympathetic brightly printed in colours; pp. [viii], 9-54; to the fascist dictatorship which was defeated in the chromolithograph illustrations throughout shadowing institutional referendum of 2 June 1946 when the and decorating the text; small, and neat, printed book Italian Republic was established; rare. label to inner upper board, light abrasions to edges and corners, and a little mild toning and rubbing, but A fascinating survival from the propaganda period, in an excellent copy, internally crisp and clean Italy, during the fascist dictatorship of World War II. This throughout. educational tool was retrieved from a private house in Verona, which was one of the last Italian cities in Early edition of a beautiful alphabet with text in Mussolini’s Italian Socialist Republic to be liberated by French. Each letter is represented by a word, American troops, on 26th April 1945 (Milan was liberated followed by a short tale incorporating the noun. Job’s a day earlier; a date which marks Italy’s Liberation Day), delicately and finely printed colour illustrations, before the ceasefire and conclusion of the war on 2nd which often form a background to the printed text, May 1945. Most fascinatingly the alphabet includes a rare are delightful. F for fascio, illustrating a Fascio Litterio, the symbol for the fascist regime. The plaque presumably only survived destruction because the image was overlaid and hidden at the fall of the dictatorship when most printed material from this period was obliterated. The speculative date for the alphabet has been arrived at by considering the design of the bomber plane representing A - aereoplano - which resembles the German Dornier Do 217. The Italian Royal Air Force acquired 12 such aircraft between 1942 and 1943. The example here has 3 very small symbols of the ‘fascio littorio’ below one of its wings. SOTHERAN’S, LONDON 2019 1 3. ADAMS, Richard (author). John LAWRENCE (illustrator). Watership Down. London; Penguin Books/Kestrel Books. 1976. £3,950 8vo. Original fine full green morocco, spine with raised bands lettered in gilt, with gilt centres of rabbits and corn in compartments, upper cover stamped in gilt with a design of rabbits after John Lawrence, inner gilt dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, by Sangorski and Sutcliffe, preserved in the original marbled board slipcase; pp. [xii], [xiii]- [xiv], [17]-550; profusely illustrated with marginal vignettes, full-, and half-page line drawings, tinted illustrations, and coloured plates after watercolours, all by John Lawrence, with a large fold-out coloured map at rear; a fine copy, both externally and internally, of a beautifully produced book. First illustrated edition, de luxe, limited to only 250 numbered copies, double-signed by the both author and the illustrator; with a stunning half-page original watercolour by John Lawrence in gentle hues depicting two rabbits in the undergrowth, nibbling clover, signed with initials. This is a pristine example of the best edition of this children’s classic. Although 250 numbered copies of the limited edition were produced, only a fraction have the original watercolour by Lawrence. The majority of the remainder of the run was acquired by a London bookseller who added fore-edge paintings, by another artist, to each copy. 2 CHILDREN’S AND ILLUSTRATED BOOKS 5. AIKEN, Joan (author). Whispering Mountain. London; Jonathan Cape. 1968. £88 4. AIKEN, Joan (author). Jan 8vo. Original turquoise boards PIENKOWSKI (illustrator). A lettered in gilt to spine, pictorial Necklace of Raindrops. London; map endpapers in colours, Jonathan Cape. 1968. £88 preserved in pictorial 8vo. Original turquoise blue dustwrapper with wrap-around linson boards pictorially blocked design in black and white; pp. in silhouette and lettered in [viii], 9-240; with title-page black, silhouette endpapers, engraving but otherwise preserved in pictorial unillustrated; both externally and dustwrapper; pp. [viii], 8-107; internally fine, and uninscribed, delightfully illustrated with crisp protected by an equally fine, unclipped dustwrapper silhouettes throughout and 8 (21s.). bright full colour plates; a lovely clean copy, without First edition. An historical fantasy, set in the time of inscription, protected by a very attractive, unclipped James III, in the fictional Welsh town of Pennygaff. dustwrapper (21s.) with rubbing to corners and An ancient prophecy is realised on the discovery of bruising, with shallow wear, to head of spine. the legendary golden Harp of Teirtu in a ruined First edition. An original, and enchanting, series of monastery. A chain of events ensues involving fairy tales by Joan Aiken including stories of a treachery, greed, kidnapping, flood, and avalanche as necklace of raindrops that keeps its owner dry in the the young Owen Hughes, and his female friend heaviest of rain-storms; a huge floating apple-pie Arabis, set off in pursuit of the hired thieves Bilk and with a piece of the sky baked into it, and a baker’s cat Prigman right to the heart of the Whispering who expands to the size of a whale when his mistress Mountain. feeds him yeast. This is Pienkowski’s first book and This volume is the prequel to Aiken’s “Wolves begins a collaboration with Joan Aiken which Chronicles”, a series of a dozen works set in her own matured in 1972 with The Kingdom Under The Sea, historical world. In it she introduces her invented which won the Kate Greenaway medal. He won this royal family of Stuart kings including Davie Jamie prize again in 1980 with his innovative pop-up book Charlie Neddie Georgie Harry Dick Tudor-Stuart The Haunted House. (phew!), who becomes King of England in her later book The Cuckoo Tree. 6. ALDIN, Cecil (illustrator). Walter EMMANUEL (author). A Dog Day. London, William Heinemann. 1902. £298 4to. Original cream cloth-backed buff pictorial boards; pp. [60]; with 28 delightful coloured plates depicting a white mongrel puppy, printed in chalky lithography after pastels by the artist; an attractive copy with dust-soiling to boards, a few minor marks, and light wear to edges and corner tips; internally crisp and clean with fresh plates, the usual offset browning to free endpapers at front and rear, and a neat contemporary gift inscription, dated Dec. 1902, to a prelim page. First edition of Aldin’s celebrated first dog book. SOTHERAN’S, LONDON 2019 3 7. [ALICE]. [CARROLL, Lewis]. John TENNIEL (illustrator). Alice in Wonderland Calendar, 1906. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode. 1906. £850 A 6-leaf pictorial calendar printed on glazed white card with a total of 16 chromolithographed images after Tenniel’s original engravings, with two monthly calendar layouts per page and original puncture holes at the upper margin held by replaced silk ribbon ties; 8. [ALICE IMITATION]. TURNBULL, A. (author). a rare ephemeral, and early, survival with only a little Dr. J.C. SMITH (illustrator). René CLOKE light dusting and marking, one tiny lower corner (illustrator). Mr. Never-Lost. A Story for children excision, and a couple of very short corner creases. between the ages of eight and eighty. London, W. & R. Chambers, Limited. 1936. £78 8vo. Original light blue linson boards lettered and ruled in dark blue, preserved in pictorial dustwrapper; pp. [iv], 5-239; with mounted coloured frontispiece and black-and-white drawings throughout by René Cloke; a very good copy with dusting and speckling to edges of book block, protected by the attractive, unclipped dustwrapper (3/6) with light dusting, fraying to spine ends, chipping to corners and one, nearly closed, tear to upper joint (40mm) now neatly repaired to the reverse with archival tissue. Second edition, published three years after the first. A ‘modern’ fantasy adventure, and an “outstanding work in the tide of children’s books” (The Scotsman review), about a young girl, Rosie, who travels through the drawing-room wallpaper to Fairyland. The narrative is constructed along the lines of Carroll’s Alice adventures and “sparkl[es] with humorous word-play” (Manchester City News review). 4 CHILDREN’S AND ILLUSTRATED BOOKS 9. ALLINGHAM, Helen (illustrator). Stewart DICK (author). The Cottage Homes of England. London, Edward Arnold. 1909. £498 4to. Original white cloth decorated in gilt to spine and upper cover, top edge gilt, others uncut, unopened; pp. xvi + 287; 64 fine mounted coloured plates after watercolours by Helen Allingham set behind tissue-guards, largely depicting picturesque thatched cottages in Victorian rural scenes; a fine copy in exceptional condition, both externally and internally, with a contemporary inscription to front free endpaper.