The Wind in the Willows

Grahame (Kenneth).   Frontispiece by Graham Robertson with tissue guard Methuen and Co.,  1908 First Edition     Gilt lettering and designs fresh and bright, a little wear at edges and covers with a few very light stains, some professional colour restoration; preliminaries and end-leaves somewhat darkened and foxed as usual and edges of some leaves also foxed, but a nice copy of an increasingly scarce book. Ownership inscription erased from fly-leaf but from the library of Dame Freya Stark and her husband Stewart Perowne, bearing their Asolo bookplate  Published twenty-three years before the first appearance of Ernest H. Shepard’s illustrations of this classic tale of Toad, Ratty, Mole and their friends, the first edition has a representation of Toad in motoring costume on the spine and an illustration for the controversial chapter VII, “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn”, on the upper cover. Never originally intended for publication, it was first written in the form of letters to Grahame’s son, Alistair. 

Price: £4000