Fairy Tales - Hans Christian Andersen, Harry Clarke (illustrator) 1916 - George G. Harrap &, London - First edition illustrated by Harry Clark Twenty four of Andersen’s classic fairy tales, exquisitely illustrated in gothic Beardsley-esque fashion by the great Irish artist Harry Clark, with sixteen tipped-in full-page colour plates mounted on heavy paper, each with a captioned tissue guard, twenty-four black and white drawings, and numerous decorative tailpieces.   Clarke (1889-1931) was apprenticed to his father, the head of a large firm of stained glass artists in 1906. After attending the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art (1910-13) and the Ile-de-France he set up his own stained glass workshop in Dublin and carried out a great deal of work in Ireland, England and abroad. In the style of many renaissance painters he liked to include a small self portrait somewhere in the window, making his work still identifiable in Churches today. As an illustrator, he is comparable with Beardsley, Dulac and Nielsen, yet darker. Influenced by the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements, his work included The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The Rape of the Lock, Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales, Perrault’s Fairy Tales, and Goethe’s Faust - but his illustrations for Poe remain his dark masterpieces. Like Beardsley, Clarke died from tuberculosis in 1931.

References: Horne, The Dictionary of 20th Century British Book Illustrators, 146. Houfe, British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists 1800-1914, 261. Penguin. Dictionary of Irish Biography.

Quarto (binding size 28.8x21.2cm), pp. [8] 9-320.   In later scarlet grain pattern rexine, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, cream endpapers, top edge gilt others untrimmed,   Condition: Near fine, light scattered foxing to first and last few pages, in fine modern binding.   Ref: 112213   Price: HK$ 4,000