THE CANTERBURY TALES OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER by KENT, ROCKWELL, Illustrator. CHAUCER, GEOFFREY - 1930

Two volumes. Translated into modern English by William Van Wyck. Publisher's original pale beige linen, gilt lettering to upper covers and smooth spines, top edges gilt, others untrimmed. WITH 80 WOODCUT ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROCKWELL KENT, comprised of 25 full-page in black and brown and 55 black & white head- and tailpieces (many repeated). Text in double columns, with modern English adjacent to the original Chaucerian English. Rockwellkentiana, p. 62. ◆Backstrips faintly darkened, very slight wrinkling at spine ends, but an extremely pleasing copy--fresh and bright internally, and the easily soiled bindings remarkably clean.

Textually distinguished by a line-for-line modern English translation printed alongside the original Middle English, this is the grand edition of Chaucer's classic illustrated by the renowned American painter, printmaker, and writer Rockwell Kent. An artist with transcendentalist tendencies, Kent (1882-1971) spent much of his career living in, visiting, and producing images of rural or remote locations. In "The 20th Century Book," John Lewis says that although Kent's "most interesting illustrations were drawn from his own travel books . . . he has illustrated a number of other books, including an effective edition of Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales.' The full-page illustrations for this book were of single figures, in Kent's simple engraved technique, printed in black and brown." However simple they might seem to be, those figures in folio size are imposing, and one cannot help but take note of them, as much for their stark, unadorned beauty as for their expanse. The Kent "Tales" has always been considered an impressive and desirable publication: this "regular" edition (as Covici-Friede advertised it) sold for $50, a very hefty sum for a new book during the Great Depression. Unlike the present copy, this work in original linen is commonly found in considerable distress, or else rebound..