The Digressions of V: Written for His Own Fun and that of his Friends

Boston and NY: Houghton Mifflin Company. Near Fine with no dust jacket. 1910. First Edition Thus. Second Printing. Hard Cover. Publisher's full light brown cloth, gilt lettering and decoration on spine, elaborate gilt decoration and borders on cover, all designed by Vedder, t.e.g. Illustrated with 108 B&W etchings, engravings, gravures, drawings, and photographs by Elihu Vedder. Elihu Vedder (1836-1923) was an American symbolist painter, book illustrator, and poet, born in New York City. He is best known for his fifty-five illustrations for Edward FitzGerald's translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (deluxe edition, 1884, published by Houghton Mifflin). Vedder had a home in Rome and - after the financial success of his 1884 Rubaiyat work - on the Isle of Capri, then a haven for male aesthetes. He decorated the hallway of the Reading Room of the Washington Library of Congress, and his mural paintings can still be seen there. In 2008, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington organized an exhibition of Vedder's Rubaiyat illustrations that toured several museums, including the Phoenix Art Museum. Vedder describes this book as "containing the quaint legends of his infancy, an account of his stay in Florence, the garden of lost opportunities, return home on the track of Columbus, his struggle in New York in war-time coinciding with that of the nation, his prolonged stay in Rome, and likewise his prattlings upon art, tamperings with literature, struggles with verse, and many other things, being a portrait of himself from youth to age. With many illustrations by the author." . Two pencil marks on spine, small red mark on rear board, else fine. NEAR FINE.. Etchings, Engravings, Gravures, Drawings, & Photos. 4to 11" - 13" tall. xxvi, 521, (1) pp .