First edition, first impression, 112pp, with 110 reproductions of the drawings of Mervyn Peake. Brown pictorial cloth-covered boards with yellow titles on spine. Illustrated endpapers. 4to. Cloth is a little pushed at extreme corners and spine tips, a little faded in margins. Upper text block edge a little dust dulled. Internally neat, clean and tight. In its original illustrated dust wrapper, price clipped,, bumped on extreme edges. Dust wrapper now protected in a Mylar-style sleeve.
Mervyn Laurence Peake (1911-1968) was a writer, artist, poet and illustrator. Best known for his Gormenghast books but he first made his name as a painter and illustrator. For Peake, drawing was an essential of life, part of his daily effort to bring some order to a prodigal imagination which eventually declined to dementia.
