Twenty Drawings.
With an Introductory Essay by Alice Raphael.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1919 Stock Code: 137819
Inscribed copy
First edition, first printing, inscribed by Gibran on the front free endpaper, "To Margarrite Marguerite? Harrison Day, with kindest thoughts from Kahlil Gibran, 1923". The recipient has proved unidentifiable, though it is tempting to think her some relation of Gibran's early creative mentor the Boston photographer Fred Holland Day.Twenty Drawings was Gibran's first and only collection of drawings, and only the second of his English-language publications - the first being The Madman (1918), and the fourth being his world-famous The Prophet (1923). "For Gibran the canvas represented another form in which his poetry could be expressed... the pieces included in Twenty Drawings clearly demonstrate the mystical qualities Gibran imbued in all his works, whatever the medium" (Allen, p. 184). The collection, which includes a critical introduction by the contemporary art historian Alice Raphael Eckstein, contains works considered "to be his best visual art up to that date" (ibid., p. 184). Twenty Drawings was also issued in a signed limited edition. There are however no inscribed copies listed in auction records.
Description
Small folio. Original brown cloth-backed cream boards, spine and front cover lettered in gilt, central roundel to front cover in gilt. With part of the dust jacket: front flap and attached panel, and part of the rear panel.
Illustrations
Colour frontispiece portraying the artist's mother, and 19 monochrome plates, all with captioned tissue guards.
Condition
Ends and corners somewhat worn, with light rubbing along board edges, titles a little dulled at spoine, front board with a few marks, but a very good copy overall, sound and internally clean but for a few unobtrusive finger marks.
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