WILDE, Oscar; [Donia NACHSHEN, Illus.] ~ The Works of Oscar Wilde. With fifteen original drawings.

FIRST UK PRINTING. Collins, London: [c.1930].

Crown 8vo., publisher's blue cloth, lettered and decorated in gilt to spine with central gilt device to upper board; together in the vibrant pictorial dustwrapper priced 10/6 net to spine; decorative green endpapers, frontis, title vignette and a further 14 full page black and white woodcut illustrations, all by Donia Nachshen; THE BOOK very good +, heavily sunned to edges of boards and evenly along spine, as is common, a little shaky in the binding; upper edge darkened; THE WRAPPER also very good +, seldom found in this condition, with the colours remaining bright, darkened along folds and some edges, with some creasing and nicking to ends of folds and spine, and couple of small chips, occasional short closed tears; unrestored internally. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. FIRST UK EDITION thus, printed on India-style paper. A collected edition of the works of the celebrated Irish writer, poet and playwright, here featuring 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', 'The Happy Prince', and 'The Importance of being Earnest'. The contributions are greatly enhanced by the evocative black and white illustrations by Donia Nachshen, a Ukrainian-born British book illustrator and poster artist who is now best known for the posters she produced for the British government during the Second World War. Here, the frontispiece shows 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime'; a short story in which Lord Arthur Savile is introduced by Lady Windermere to Mr Septimus R. Podgers, a chiromantist, who reads his palm and tells him that he is destined to be a murderer. A wonderful, illustrated edition. Scarce with the dustwrapper.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Very Good +
JACKET: Very Good +