[FOUQUÉ, De La Motte]. Undine. Adapted from the German by W. L. Courtney and Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. London: Published by William Heinemann, 1909.
First Rackham trade edition, first impression. Leather-bound. Hardcover. Quarto (25cm x 18cm x 3cm). Pp. viii, 136. English text, translated from the German by W. L. Courtney. Bound in stunning full dark blue morocco gilt, signed 'The Times Book Club' in gilt on the front turn-in. All page edges gilt. Marbled endpapers. Half-title. Decorative title-page printed in green and black. 15 mounted colour illustrations each with a captioned tissue-guard and various other black and white illustrations throughout the text by Arthur Rackham. Printed by Ballantyne & Co. Limited. Condition: FINE. An immaculate copy. Nice armorial bookplate to front pastedown and front endpaper. Scarce thus.
Notes: Rare first edition rebound in this stunning binding. Beautifully illustrated by Arthur Rackham, with fifteen tipped-in colour plates, and 30-plus in text illustrations, including a beautifully illustrated title-page. This publication "was still another step forward for Rackham, the unity of conception in the line drawings and the colour plates, and the assertion of contrast in the moods of the heroine, rendered it a masterpiece of sympathetic understanding" (Hudson, p. 80). The English translation of this romantic tale, known in German as Erzahlung, was translated here by W. L. Courtney. The heroine of the story, Undine, a beautiful water spirit, marries a knight so that she could have a human soul. It is an early German romance, which has been translated into English since 1811, and many other languages. The references to Undine in such works as Charlotte Yonge's The Daisy Chain and Louisa Alcott's Little Women indicate that it was one of the best loved of all books for many 19th-century children. [Latimore & Haskell, pp. 34-5; Riall, pp. 93-4. Derek Hudson, Arthur Rackham, His Life and Work, 1975].
