[Rarebooks] fa: ORIGINAL PEN & INK ILLUMINATED INITIALS from Dickens' Christmas Carol

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now along with other illustrated works, auctions ending Sunday, March 22. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/k89yxgw

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

Francis Donkin Bedford: A set of two original designs for illuminated initials featured in Bedford's illustrated edition of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, published by Macmillan, London, 1923. Pen & ink on heavy artist's board, measuring c. 17 x 8.5 cm; images measuring c. 5 x 5 cm. Some glue residue to the edges, a few scattered light spots, penciled notation in the upper margin.

The initials consist of an "M" within a holly bush to open Stave One, "Marley was dead…" and a "W", similarly embellished, to open Stave Two, "When Scrooge awoke…" Bedford also executed the black& white illustrations and color plates for the book. Included in this lot is a 1934 reprint of Bedford's illustrated edition. A charming and unusual addition to any Dickens collection.

Francis D. Bedford (1864-1954) was an English artist and prolific book illustrator, primarily of children's books. His other works include illustrations for the first edition of J. M. Barries' Peter and Wendy (1911), as well as A Book of Nursery Rhymes (1897), Four and Twenty Toilers (1900), The Visit to London (1902), The Magic Fishbone (1921), and The Cricket on the Hearth (1927).