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First edition with the illustrations by Berthe Marx. Number 2 of 15 copies with the suite of all 29 wood engravings on chine, all initially by the artist. Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.

First edition with the Roubille illustrations. Number 2 of 15 copies with the suite of all 29 wood engravings on chine, all initially by the artist. Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.

First edition with Grillon’s illustrations. Number 2 of 15 copies with the suite of all 29 wood engravings on chine, all initially by the artist. Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper. 1913

First edition with the Colin illustrations of Audoux successful autobiography of a humble rural upbringing (1911).

Number 2 of 15 copies with the suite of all 21 wood engravings on chine, all initially by the artist. Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.

First edition with Bruyer’s illustrations (the book was first published unillustrated in 1913), number 2 of 15 copies with all the wood engravings present in a signed suite on chine.

Fayard’s Livres de Demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.

First edition with Falké’s illustrations, number 2 of 15 copies with all the wood engravings present in a signed suite on chine.

Fayard’s Livres de Demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper. The series was very popular and ran for several years, with some titles reprinted in successive editions.

First edition with the illustrations by Roubille, one of 15 copies with all the wood engravings present in a signed suite on chine.

Fayard’s Livres de Demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper. The series was very popular and ran for several years, with some titles reprinted in successive editions.

First edition. Fayard’s Livres de Demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper. The series was very popular and ran for several years, with some titles reprinted in successive editions.

First edition of the first of Fayard’s important Livre de Demain series, one of 15 copies with the illustrations in an additional suite on chine, signed. Benjamin’s Prix Goncourt novel of 1915 was written in hospital while recovering from injuries sustained at Verdun in September 1914 (and first published by Fayard). The wood engravings are among Renefer’s most evocative war illustrations.

Fayard’s Livres de Demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper. The series was very popular and ran for several years, with some titles reprinted in successive editions.

First edition with the illustrations by Hallo, number 2 of 15 copies with the suite of all 28 wood engravings on chine, all signed by the artist. Louÿs’ novel set in Seville (’The Woman and the Puppet’) first appeared in 1898. It saw several later editions and no less than five film adaptations, including Duvivier’s 1959 classic starring Brigitte Bardot.

Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.

First edition with the illustrations by Hallo, number 2 of 15 copies with the suite of all 23 wood engravings on chine, all initialled by the artist. Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.

First edition with Renefer’s illustrations of an evocative Montparnasse-set novel first published in 1923. Number 2 of 15 copies with the suite of all 29 wood engravings on chine, all signed by the artist. Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.

First edition with Daragnès’s illustrations, number 2 of 15 copies with the suite of all 27 wood engravings on chine, all numbered. Daragnès was both an artist and publisher in his own right, producing some of the most stylish illustrated books of the interwar period. Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.

First edition with Renefer’s illustrations, number 2 of 15 copies with the suite of all 22 wood engravings on chine, all signed by the artist. Elder’s novel of the sea had won the 1913 Prix Goncourt (against both Proust and Alain Fournier). Renefer had made his name as a war artist during the Great War. Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.

First edition with the Falké illustrations, number 2 of 15 copies only with the woodcuts on chine, numbered and initialled by the artist. A colonialist novel in which a young Senegalese fisherman finds himself enlisted in the army, fighting with the French in the trenches of the Great War. It first appeared in 1922. Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.

An eighteenth-century homemade binding of a portion of a popular literary and satirical miscellany, a reminder that not all reading from perfect copies. The New Foundling Hospital for Wit appeared from 1768-7) and was a vehicle for John Wilkes and his radical bookseller John Almon, each issue audacious satirical engravings. This one includes, as a frontispiece, ‘A Citizen of the World searching for a Wise Prince’ in which blindfolded man walks an empty street carrying a lantern and wearing a long, furred civic gown. On a sign board overhead is a portrait of Augusta, Princess Dowager of Wales and a jackboot, the emblem of the Earl of Bute. Below is a quote from Shakespeare: ‘Who says ‘Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye than twenty of their swords (Romeo and Juliet).

Among the various verses we find Richard Berenger’s ‘On the Birth-Day of Shakespeare’ originally included in The World.

First edition (presumed first issue, being bound concertina style). A very rare and influential kimono design book by the Rinpa master, Kamisake Sekka. Koromogae (literally ‘change of clothes’) consists of 100 striking modernist fabric designs for kimonos, on double leaves. Sekka was an influential advocate for the wearing and design of the kimono among early twentieth-century Japanese women, encouraging the modernisation of its decoration and a closer liaison between producer and consumer.

Sekka is important for having fused traditional Japanese design with European modernism, the latter experienced first hand in his visit to the Glasgow International Exhibition of 1901. At the age of 36, Sekka travelled to Europe on behalf of the Kyoto local government to attend the Glasgow Exhibition. He stayed in Europe about six months researching European craft and design before returning to Kyoto where he served as an instructor at the School of Art and Design. ‘Kamisaka Sekka (1866-1942) was one of Japan’s leading artists, designers and art instructors. His bold, visually dynamic designs and innovative approach to production made him one of the great visionaries of modern Japanese art and design’ (Kamisaka Sekka: Dawn of modern Japanese Design, 2012). Libraryhub (formerly COPAC) lists the BL copy only (and a copy of vol. 1 only at Manchester). Worldcat adds National Diet Libryyr (Tokyo) and University of Cincinnati only.

First edition. ‘... born at Calais, author of lively, licentious novels, widely read about 1800 (the favourite reading of Miss Crawley in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair)... During a riotous, dissipated youth this author returned to Calais on one occasion to find that his disgusted father had published notice of his death’ (Oxford Companion to French Literature).

Monsieur Botte was reprinted several times and seems to have found favour in 1803 adapted for the stage as M. Botte; ou, Le négociant anglais comédie en trois actes et en prose, imitée du roman de Pigault-Lebrun by Servières and Sutton de Clonard. The Critical Review describes an English edition of 1804 published by William Lane (of the Minerva Press), but if it was indeed published by Lane, we can find no trace of it in the usual catalogues.

First edition in French of The Banished Man (1794). Smith’s republican sympathies are well-known, but this novel marked a shift in her enthusiasm for the Revolution — it opens in 1792 with the impact of the Revolutionary wars and covers the execution of King Louis XVI in January 1793 as well as the radical period of the Terror. The introduction to Marquand’s translation serves as a retrospective review of Smith’s remarkable popularity in France. Worldcat lists the copy at Illinois as the only copy outside continental Europe. The UK’s Libraryhub (formerly COPAC) adds a copy at Birmingham.

A group reliures japonisantes on a series of Edinburgh-printed ‘Author’s Edition’ copies of these two American authors. This style of binding, with characteristic embossed gilt paper covers in Japanese style became a bibliophilic vogue in the 1880s, reflecting the tremendous enthusiasm for all things Japanese in contemporary Paris. It is most unusual to find them in this context, on a group of popular American titles:

HOLMES, Oliver Wendell. The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. 1883. pp. xlviii, 212; 256, (without half-titles) [and] HOWELLS, William D. Their Wedding Journey and A Chance Acquaintance. 1882, pp. 320; 303, [1]; The Undiscovered Country, 1882, pp. 250; 4 pages of ads, 269, [1]; The Lady of Aroostook. 1882, pp. 204 191, [1]; The Rise of Silas Lapham. 1885, pp. 330; 320, [2]; A Forgone Conclusion. A Counterfeit Presentment and The Parlour Car. 1882, pp. 316; 228.