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183 SPARK, Muriel. The Ballad of Peckham Rye. With Other Stories. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1960 First edition, presentation copy, inscribed “Barbara, lots of love from Muriel”. The recipient’s surname has been rubbed out, but can be confidently inferred from Spark’s autograph letter and envelope taped to the front pastedown, addressed to Miss Barbara Richards, dated 30 September 1958, at the Little Gem pub in Aylesford, thanking them for their hospitality during her recent holiday, commending the “combined personalities of yourself and the house”, and interested to know of the reaction to Eric’s paintings. Octavo. Original blue boards, titles to spine in red. With dust jacket, supplied. Canterbury bookseller’s ticket to rear pastedown. Sunning to spine and along board edges, ends and corners worn, spine rolled, sound and clean inside, a good copy with the jacket rubbed at extremities, but bright and intact. £1,500 [152757] 184 SPECULATION. Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid. [The Netherlands:] 1720 [but after 1723] THE GREAT MIRROR OF FOLLY AS A LUXURY PICTURE BOOK
Third and definitive edition, published for the first time as a luxury picture book in a bespoke binding. In a series of large engravings, the volume ruthlessly satirizes the mass hysteria, greed, credulousness, and deception which characterizes stock market bubbles. Easily ranking among the most striking, remarkable, and bizarre books in the field of economic literature, the Tafereel was first published soon after the bursting of the South Sea and Mississippi bubbles. “This book works so well because the Tafereel is not just about the eighteenth century; it is also a mirror of other times, other public hysterias, and other speculative bubbles – even of our recent financial crises and the kinds of speculative folly that led to the financial crises of recent years” (Robert J. Schiller, in Goetzmann et al , p. vii). The publication history is notoriously complex. In essence, the Tafereel reprints and adapts a multitude of Dutch texts and prints that came out on the theme of economic bubbles and speculative mania, chiefly satirical. The stated purpose was to convey a “warning for future generations”, though of course it was more broadly a humorous take on the bubbles and get-rich-quick schemes that were a persistent and prominent feature of Dutch life of the period. The Dutch stock market was rivalled only by London in its scope and reach. It saw extensive public engagement and investment, and – though it is chiefly Tulip Mania that is remembered now – bubbles and crashes were common. There was thus a ready market for such a volume. Due to the
amendment of existing plates, adding and removing further plates over time, and resetting the text leaves, copies vary significantly in make-up.
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SPRING 2022
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