BURTON, Sir Richard

BURTON, Sir Richard F. (Tr.). The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night

 London, H. S. Nichols, 1897.

£1650

8vo, 12 vols. The illustrated library edition. Publisher’s red half morocco, green cloth over boards, raised bands, gilt title to spine in English and Arabic, interlace panels to the third and fifth compartments, upper fore-edge gilt, the others uncut, beautiful marbled endpapers. Spines just a little worn and rubbed, an admirable collection withal. 71 photogravure plates taken from oil paintings by Albert Letchford, especially commissioned for this work, each with captioned tissue-guard. One of the variant issues of the Nichols-Smithers Editions, this styled the “illustrated ‘Library Edition’” by Penzer (p.122), while the blocking to the tails of the spines identifies it as the Kamashastra Edition. A very good, attractive, and skilfully produced set. Chauvin IV, 229 refers to the 1893 issue of the “Library Edition”, note at p.85 to the Letchford illustrations; Penzer pp.122-3.