£450.00
Author: Edgar Allan Poe
Publisher: London Hodder and Stoughton
First trade Dulac illustrated edition. Twenty-eight color plates, with descriptive tissue guards. Ten black ink head-pieces on tan backgrounds and portrait of Poe on the title-page, also in black ink on tan background. With a flyer for the exhibition of Dulac’s watercolours for the book at the Leicester Galleries loosely inserted.
4to., Original grey-green cloth, gilt stamped on front cover with all-over Dulac design of clusters of bells and lettered in gilt. Spine lettered in gilt and with similar design. Gilt on spine a little dulled otherwise a very good copy.
"Dulac's pictures for The Bells were more uniform in mood and style than groupings for almost any other book of his to this time. Although water colours, they are overstreaked with gilt in some cases, crayon in others, to produce rich haunting effects. Deep shades of blue and a special deep pink-rust predominate throughout...The Outlook commented: 'sometimes Dulac's pictures are deep-coloured and intense, sometimes dim and ghost-like. But one and all are sensitized to record impressions of unearthly beauty or horror. Only Poe could have written the poems. Only Dulac could have illustrated them'...As the 10 Bells headpieces show, he had now become truly masterful with his pen" (Hughey).