Midsummer-Night's Dream, A.

New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1939. The Final Book Published During Rackham's Lifetime

[RACKHAM, Arthur, illustrator]. SHAKESPEARE, William. A Midsummer-Night's Dream. The Text of the First Folio, with Quarto Insertions, Edited and Amended Where Obscure by Herbert Farjeon. Illustrated from Water-colors by Arthur Rackham. New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1939.

Deluxe edition limited to 1,950 copies of which this is no. 1306. Folio (12 7/8 x 8 3/4 inches; 328 x 223 mm.). Six color lithographed plates. With LEC Subscriber's Letter for this volume laid-in at front. Designed by Bruce Rogers.

Publishers quarter tan buckram over decorative paper boards. Top edge gilt, others untrimmed. A near fine copy.

"The illustrations for this play were made by one of the world's most famous illustrators, that Englishman Mr. Arthur Rackham. He has been for years one of the most prolific of the world's illustrators, and one of the most admired.

He is now seventy-two years old, having being born in London in 1867... Mr. Rackham's Illustrations for this play were made in watercolor. They are full of fancy and fantasy, and they are, as in each of Mr. Rackham's pictures, engaging to the eye, pretty to look upon." (The Limited Editions Club Shakespeare Commentary).

The final book published during Rackham's lifetime. "This is one of the 37 volumes of the set of the works of Shakespeare, each illustrated by a different artist, produced for members of the Limited Editions Club in 1939-40." (Riall)

Bruce Rogers (1870 - 1957) was an American typographer and type designer, acclaimed by some as among the greatest book designers of the twentieth century. Rogers was known for his "classical" style of design, rejecting modernism, never using asymmetrical arrangements, rarely using sans serif type faces, favoring stolid roman faces such as Caslon and his own Centaur.