Ballet Shoes. A Story of Three Children on the Stage. - Rare Book Insider
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Ballet Shoes. A Story of Three Children on the Stage.

London; Dent, Pennant Books. 1968. 8vo.; publisher's forest-green and acid-yellow cloth, in pictorial dustwrapper; pp. [viii], ix-[x] + 231 + [i]; with line illustrations throughout by Ruth Gervis; a near fine copy, both inside and out, with a tiny dint to bottom edge of upper cover, in a near fine, price-clipped dustwrapper retaining the original bookseller's price sticker to upper flap (£1.10) and with slight fading to spine. Vintage edition with the original illustrations by Gervis, inscribed in ink by Noel Streatfeild to front blank, "For Davida Hodson, Noel Streatfeild". Signed copies of this title are rare in commerce. This is the first such copy handled by us in over thirty-five years and the only signed copy of the title located on the commercial market at the time of cataloguing.
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Fringilla: Some Tales in Verse

Fringilla: Some Tales in Verse

BLACKMORE, Richard Doddridge London: Wlkin Mathews, 1895. 4to., sage green cloth elaborately blocked and lettered in dark green to both boards and spine, with a central circular motif featuring a bird to the lower cover; pp. [ix], 2-128, 20 [ads.]; with full decorative title; proliferated throughout with borders, initials and full-page illustrations by Louis Fairfax Muckley, and three by James W. R. Linton; all behind mounted tissue-guards; edges, endpapers and tissue guards a little browned; evidence of a former bookplate being removed from the front paste-down; some light spotting to prelims; still a lovely example, a little pushed to corners and head/foot of spine. First edition, published simultaeously with the American edition, also printed in 1895, which had parallel illustrations by Will Bradley. "Can'st thou suppose it right or just, When thine own creature so misled us, In virtue of our simple trust, To torture us like this, and tread us Back into dust? Often referred to as the "Last Victorian", R. D. Blackmore is best known for his magnum opus Lorna Doone, and much of his other work has faded into obscurity. Despite this fact, however, he achieved literary merit and acclaim in his time for his vivid descriptions and personification of the countryside, sharing with Thomas Hardy a Western England background and a strong sense of regional setting in his works. One reviewer writes, of his work: "He may be said to have done for Devon what Sir Walter Scott did for the Highlands and Hardy for Wessex." Fringilla, as a series of tales told in verse, focuses on Blackmore's love of nature, but also includes poems which explore themes of Egypt, Good and Evil, Religion, Myths and Legends.
  • $704