Overview:
Publisher: Chatto & Windus, London
Date: 1926
Edition: New Impression
Author: Joel Chandler Harris
Illustrator: J. A. Shepherd
Pagination: 366/367 pages, depending on whether the final numbered/unnumbered matter is counted
Binding: Original green pictorial publisher’s cloth
Illustrated: Colour frontispiece and numerous black-and-white illustrations
An attractive 1926 illustrated edition of Joel Chandler Harris’s Nights with Uncle Remus, published in London by Chatto & Windus and illustrated throughout by J. A. Shepherd.
Originally published in 1883, Nights with Uncle Remus followed Harris’s enormously successful Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings. The collection contains 71 stories, including many of the famous Brer Rabbit tales, presented through the Uncle Remus storytelling framework.
The stories occupy an important, though complicated, place in American literary and folklore history. Harris drew extensively upon African American oral storytelling traditions of the American South, particularly animal trickster tales with connections to West and Central African folklore. While the plantation setting, racial characterisation and Harris’s rendering of dialect are viewed critically today, the work remains significant to the history of American folklore and children’s literature.
J. A. Shepherd Illustrations
This edition is illustrated by James Affleck Shepherd, the British illustrator particularly noted for his humorous and expressive depictions of animals.
The volume contains a colour frontispiece depicting Brer Rabbit, together with numerous black-and-white illustrations throughout the text. Shepherd’s lively interpretation of the Brer Rabbit stories makes this one of the more attractive early 20th-century editions of Harris’s work.
Binding
Bound in the publisher’s original green pictorial cloth, with a large coloured illustration of Brer Rabbit bowing to a young girl on the upper board. The title and illustrator are printed decoratively in black, with further lettering to the spine.
The pictorial upper board remains particularly attractive and retains good colour.
Condition
A very good copy for its age. The original pictorial cloth remains bright and attractive, with general shelf and handling wear. The spine shows fading and toning consistent with age.
Internally generally clean and well preserved, with occasional spotting and age-related marks. Colour frontispiece present and bright, with the numerous J. A. Shepherd illustrations throughout.
Contemporary ownership inscription “From Uncle Jack” to the preliminary leaves, together with an old pencilled price notation.
Please examine the photographs carefully.
Dimensions:
- Weight - 970g
- Height - 21.2cm
- Width - 16cm
- Thickness - 3.5cm
