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12 volumes, octavo. Original green cloth, spines lettered in gilt, illustrated endpapers. Erratum slip present (Coot Club). With dust jackets. Maps drawn by Stephen Spurrier, illustrations to text by Clifford Webb and the author. Bookplate on half-title ( We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea ) and ownership stamp to verso of front free endpaper ( Great Northern? ). An excellent and attractive set. Cloth slightly sunned ( Swallows & Amazons and Swallowdale ), occasional foxing and browning, spine slightly leaning ( Swallowdale ), minor split to front inner hinge ( Pigeon Post ), otherwise very good. Occasional toning to spines of dust jackets, some light restoration ( Swallowdale , Peter Duck , Coot Club , and Pigeon Post ), occasional light foxing ( Winter Holiday ) and price-clipped with other minor loss ( We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea ), all with occasional foxing and extremities slightly frayed; else very good and attractive jackets. ¶ Hammond A25a; A26a; A27a; A28a; A29a; A30a; A31a; A32a; A33a; A34a; A35a; A36a. £37,500 [120732] 114 ROBINSON, W. Heath. “ Come, Birdie, Come!” 1926 Original artwork for a Heath Robinson contraption Published in The Bystander on 5 May 1926 on page 384. The drawing is titled “Come, Birdie, Come!” with text below explaining that it shows a “commendable enterprise on the part of two special correspondents of the ‘Stunt Press’ to be the first to report the arrival of the swallow”. The artist’s own explanation text is slightly different. Original drawing (370 × 272 mm) on artist’s board (405 × 305 mm), ink and watercolour, signed (“W. Heath Robinson”) lower left, titled below
image “Commendable enterprise of two special correspondents of ‘The Bystander’ to be the first to report the arrival of the first swallow”, with artists’ agent label on reverse, mounted, framed, and glazed (framed size 577 × 460 mm). Some light toning from previous mount; fine and unfaded. £6,750 [154984] 115 ROBINSON, W. Heath. “The Spirit of Christmas on the Riviera”. 1931 Fine original drawing in which mince pies become gambling currency Published in Nash’s Pall Mall Magazine for the December 1931 issue on page 34. Robinson provided a set of four cartoons on “The Spirit of Christmas” as a special “Art Supplement”. The individual pieces comprise: “In Regent Street”, “On the Riviera”, “In the Country”, and “In the Engadine”. A typically exuberant Heath Robinson cartoon in which mince pies and Christmas crackers replace more standard gambling chips in the casinos of the French Riviera. Original drawing (418 × 292 mm) on artist’s board (460 × 325 mm), ink and watercolour, signed (“W. Heath Robinson”) lower left, titled below mount, with artists’ agent stamp on reverse, mounted, framed, and glazed (framed size 577 × 446 mm). Pin holes at corners below mount, some toning from previous mount, some light foxing and occasional light soiling; a near-fine and unfaded drawing. £7,000 [155012]
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113 RANSOME, Arthur. Complete set of the Swallows and Amazons novels. London: Jonathan Cape, 1930–47 “Swallows and Amazons forever!” First editions, first impressions. Complete first edition sets of Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons sailing adventures novels are rare. The first book was published in an edition of only 2,000 copies (compared with the last book which of which the first issue probably numbered 11,000 copies).
Wayne G. Hammond records that “ Swallows and Amazons sold slowly at first, taking two years to earns its advance of £100”. Nevertheless, in 1948 “the house journal of Jonathan Cape announced that the one millionth copy, of the total copies printed of the twelve books in the Swallows and Amazons series, would soon be on sale”. The first film adaptation of Swallows and Amazons was released in 1974 including Virginia McKenna in the cast. A second adaptation was released in 2016 starring Andrew Scott and Harry Enfield. A musical version of the book was premiered by the National Theatre in 2010.
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
CHILDREN’S BOOKS & ORIGINAL ARTWORK
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