Idyllia.

This is a rare or used book from the Berkelouw Rare Books Department.

Sydney: N. L. Press (1922). Folio bound in white quarter calf with parchment-covered bevelled boards. Front Cover lettered in red ink and illustrated in gold. With illustrated title-page depicting publisher's gilt oval vignette and gilt title; and 5 full-page tipped-in original etchings by Norman Lindsay each numbered and fully signed and complete with its original captioned tissue-guard. Each of the 15 poems with decorative gilt initals by the artist. Limited edition of only 133 numbered copies of which only 100 were offered for sale this being Copy No. 73 fully signed "Hugh McCrae. On hand-made paper hand-printed by Perce Green and in perfect condition. Complete and extremely rare. Melbourne-born Hugh R. McCrae (1876-1958) was a p[oet as well as a writer actor and illustrator who was first encouraged to make a living from his art by Lionel and Norman Lindsay (ABD 1986). McCrae contribited to the Bulletin Lone Hand Punch Art in Australia the Sydney Morning Herald among other periodicals. Norman Lindsay (1879-1969) and McCrae were lifelong friends. Lindsay illustrated a number of McCrae's volumes poetry including his first Satyrs and Sunlight (1909). Of McCrae Lindsay was quoted as saying his "personality and his poetry have both become interwoven through the years with my progression through art and life..... his imagery was so much in key with mine that the urge to illustrate his poetry was irresistible" (ABD 1986). McCrae was lauded by his contemporaries among them Judith wright and had a significant influence on Australian poetry particularly on Kenneth Slessor. Lindsay published fifteen of McCrae's poems in the present work and illustrated it with five of his extraordinary etchings. Bloomfield described Idyllia as "(t)he handsomest book yet produced in Australia" (Bloomfield 1998 p. 59). A stunning collaboration between two notewoprthy figures in twentieth century Ausralian art and literature. NOTE: The five original etchings are: (1) what the Deer Said; (2) Robin Hood; (3) Panters; (4) The Yellow Lady; and (5) The Talking Breasts.