Presented by Pom Harrington, owner of Peter Harrington Rare Books.
Elephant folio. Original full vellum portfolio, titles to front cover gilt, with the original ivory silk ties laced to a large bow at the spine and with two pairs of ivory silk fore-edge ties skilfully supplied to match. In the original green cloth-sided card box with full-page printed paper label to front. Housed in a custom green quarter morocco solander box. 12 large proof-size colour plates mounted in mats, with captioned tissue guards, by Rackham. The box a little worn in places, but a fine copy, a remarkable survival of this luxurious presentation.
Deluxe extra-limited edition, number 13 of 100 copies signed by the publisher and engraver on the limitation page and each plate signed on the mount by the artist, bound in full vellum. According to Latimore & Haskell, although Rackham was supposed to sign all 100 copies, the artist confessed that he had signed only about 20 of them. Copies numbered 101 to 600 were issued in a half vellum portfolio with green cloth sides; none of these was signed by Rackham. The Peter Pan Portfolio reproduces 12 of Rackham’s favourite illustrations at their original size. Barrie wrote enthusiastically of Rackham’s originals, which he had seen exhibited at the Leicester Galleries, “I like best of all the Serpentine with the fairies, and the Peter in his night-gown sitting in the tree. Next I would the flying Peters, the fairies going to the ball (as in the ‘tiff’ and the fairy on cobweb) – the fairies sewing the leaves with their sense of fun (the gayest thing this) and your treatment of snow” (Ray 329). Barrie’s comments seemingly influenced Rackham’s selection, as the portfolio includes all the images the author mentioned.
