Rip Van Winkle
Price: $250.00
Hard Cover. Boston: Joseph Knight Company, 1894. Very Good.
Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill with full-page plate illustrations and drawings throughout the text. Finely bound in three-quarter black morocco, marbled paper-covered boards ruled in gilt, top edge gilt, five raised bands to spine with titles and decorations in gilt, and marbled endpapers. Very good, with light toning to spine and board edges, a bit of wear to spine, top edge of rear board, fore edge of front board, and corners, binding slightly shaken, and light dampstaining to rear fly leaves and rear free endpaper. Overall, an attractive copy, finely bound and with clean illustrations. Originally published in 1819, Rip Van Winkle is a short story about a man living in the Catskill Mountain range in the years before the onset of the American Revolution. While walking his dog in the woods one day, Van Winkle meets the ghosts of the original Dutch settlers of New York and, after drinking some of their spirits, he falls into an enchanted sleep. He wakes up an elderly man in a changed society; during his slumber, the American colonies won their independence from England and his children matured into adulthood. After absorbing the shock of these changes, Van Winkle resumes his life as a happy wanderer. This edition's illustrator, Frank T. Merrill, contributed artwork to a variety of books over his five-decade career, most notably the 1880 illustrated edition of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and the first edition of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper (1881). Item #WI022
