The Shakespeare Hero & Heroine Calendar for 1895
Place: London
Publisher: Raphael Tuck & Sons
Date: [1894]

12 leaves, chromolithographed with gilt. 29.5x24.5 cm. (11½x9¾”).
Ornate calendar featuring passages and characters from Shakespeare’s plays, “Designed in England, Printed in Germany.” Each leaf with two holes at top, but the ribbon that once connected them is gone.

Punch’s Pocket-Book for 1872, Containing a Calendar, Cash Account, Diary and Memoranda for Every Day in the Year, And a Variety of Useful Business Information
London, Punch Office, 1872

176 pp. Hand-colored folding frontispiece and additional illustrated title page, numerous inserted illustrations. (12mo) 12.3x8.5 cm. (4¾x3¼”) wallet-style black morocco, gilt-stamped figure of Mr. Punch on front. Illustrations by John Tenniel, Charles Keene, L, Sambourne, etc.

Hand Book of Gasoline Automobiles - twelve volumes
Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers / National Automobile Chamber of Commerce, 1909-1925

Marvelous guides from the infancy of the automobile, each page devoted to a different model, with a picture and full specifications, including price, number of cylinders, horsepower, wheel base, tire size, body styles available, etc. The manufacturers include such familiar names as Cadillac, Buick, Oldsmobile, Packard, Renault, and Studebaker, as well as the bygone Locomobile, Hotchkiss, Franklin, Peerless, Waltham-Orient, etc.

Complete set of the Guinness promotional pamphlets

Comprising: The Guinness Alice, 1933; The Guinness Legends and other Verses, 1934; Jabberwocky Re-Versed, 1935; Songs of our Grandfathers, 1936; A Guinness Scrap Book, 1937; Alice Aforethought, 1938; Prodigies and Prodigals, [1939]; etc., together 24 vol., colour illustrations, original pictorial wrappers, occasional slight soiling but generally very good condition, 8vo and 4to (24) (24)

B-A Note: Yes, that Guinness. Published by the Arthur Guinness & Son Co. to distribute to doctors, promoting the idea that “Guinness is Good for You”. Several were illustrated by Antony Grove-Raines, and full-size images of some of these pamphlets available here. Other illustrators include John Gilroy, Stanley Penn, and Ronald Ferns. Further information available here.

Witchcraft.- Michaelis (Sébastien)
Imprinted for William Aspley, 1613

The Admirable History of the Possession and Conversion on of a Penitent woman. Seduced by a Magician that made her to become a Witch, and the Princesse of Sorcerers…

No. 1. Press Notices of the Barnum & Bailey, Greatest Show on Earth
Undated

10 leaves, printed on rectos only. 23x10 cm. (9x4”), printed wrappers stapled at top.

Each leaf is a press notice for a different act or feature for the circus, with a space for the place and date of the performance to be filled in; the leaves are perforated at top, to be torn off an given to a newspaper or other press entity for publicity purposes. OCLC/WorldCat lists no copies of this ephemeral item.

Illustrations of Characters from the works of Dickens
CLARK, JOSEPH CLAYTON, “KYD”. 1857-1937. Group of 10 watercolor illustrations on paper, 9 x 5 3/4 inches to 11 x 8 3/4 inches, each signed in the image (“Kyd”), no date, being illustrations of characters from the works of Charles Dickens, a few somewhat toned, a few with faint residue from previous backing, generally bright and attractive.

Clayton worked for London book dealers creating ink and watercolor caricatures of Dickens characters for fine-bound sets and special portfolios, and doing fore-edge paintings, as well as illustrating books for publication. The present examples are particularly fine, colorful examples of his work likely accomplished at the height of his career.

SENDAK, MAURICE.

Original drawing, pencil on paper, 275 x 225 mm, of a bear with hat and cane, signed at lower right (“Maurice Sendak”), light smudging to sheet, matted and framed.

Little Bear dances with hat and cane.

Beautiful original drawing from an amazing book illustrator.

Sketchbook for A Midsummer Night’s Dream Arthur Rackham ca.1908

“Born in 1867, Arthur Rackham entered the Lambeth School of Art in 1884. From 1885 to 1892 he worked as a clerk in an insurance office. In 1893 he began what would be his life’s work, illustrating the Ingoldsby Legends, and Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare. He became famous with Grimm’s Fairy Tales in 1900, and Rip Van Winkle in 1905, and through an exhibition held at the Leicester Galleries in 1905. The Rackham collection at Columbia University contains 413 drawings, watercolors, and oil paintings, as well as 30 sketch books, including this one of sketches for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In addition, the collection contains some 400 printed books and ephemera.”

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred C. Berol, 1967
Via the online exhibition “Jewels In Her Crown: Treasures of the Columbia University Libraries Special Collections”.