Japanese colour-prints (special de luxe edition )

Sydney : Privately printed [by The Beacon Press], 1936. Special de luxe edition limited to 65 numbered and signed copies, with the author’s seal (this is copy no. 9). Note : a standard de luxe edition of 185 copies was also printed. Large quarto, quarter vellum over cloth boards (foxed and discoloured, as is commonly found as a result of the binding glue employed), upper board with gilt lettering and illustration of a torii gate and Fuji in red, spine lettered in gilt with gilt rule (marked), decorated endpapers, pp 109, [1] blank, [1] index, [1] blank], [1] colophon, [1] tipped-in photograph of the author, [1] other works by the author, [4] blank, illustrated with [94] tipped-in colour plates, some off-setting (as usual) and light foxing,

The first of P. Neville Barnett’s deluxe edition publications on Japanese prints, and ‘the most significant indication of the shift into his Japanese period’. Barnett bore chief responsibility for introducing the classics of ukiyo-e into the Australian collecting market, through the publication of a series of magnificent deluxe edition folios illustrated with high quality facsimiles sourced from the famous Watanabe print shop in Tokyo. His first publication turned out better than expected ‘The fact of the matter is, I have been one the greatest adventure of my life … it is even closer to my wildest dreams, [more] than I ever dreamed of!’.

Rare.

Reference :

Diane Kraal, ‘From Chatswood to Eco : the life & books of P. Neville Barnett’. Melbourne : the author, 2007, pp. 39 – 41.