RACKHAM, Arthur (Illustrator). Some British Ballads. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham.

London: Constable & Co. Ltd., [1919]. First edition. 4to, pp. 170; with 16 tipped-in colour plates mounted on grey paper (tissue guards) and numerous lithograph illustrations in the text. Half blue crushed levant morocco, covers decoratively bordered in gilt with gilt corner-pieces. Spine with five raised bands, decoratively tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments, cockerel marbled end-papers. Top edge gilt. Occasional mild foxing otherwise a very good copy in a handsome binding.
Hudson, p. 170. Latimore and Haskell, pp. 5051.
The first trade edition of these ballads, illustrated by Rackham, sourced largely from Francis James Child’s English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Amongst them are the ‘The Twa Corbies’ and ‘Clerk Colvill’. The charming illustrations in the text are paired with ornaments incorporating botanical and zoological motifs, which accompany footnotes to the text. Rackham’s sixteen magnificent colour illustrations depict ‘a succession of fascinating heroines habited in quaint and picturesque costumes, amid surroundings which, though belonging to no definite place or period, are always appropriate and congruous’. His heroes are hardly less charming than his heroines, and the scenes in which they are represented constitute a series of fascinating and delightful pictures. “Few of Mr Rackham’s work have been more consistently impressed with charm and beauty than his illustrations in colour to Some British Ballads.”

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