[GERMAN, Edward composer] KIPLING, Rudyard. The Just So Song Book being the Songs from Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories set to Music by Edward German. Macmillan and Co. Limited 1920.
4to., original decorative red cloth; a very good copy; provenance: from the library of Stephen Spender (copy of his bookplate on upper pastedown).
Reprint. This book is from the library of the poet, author and essayist Sir Stephen Spender whose social circle included W.H. Auden, W.B. Yeats, Ted Hughes and T.S. Eliot. These books are marked by a posthumous facsimile of Spender's bookplate which was designed by John Craxton as a belated wedding present. John Craxton was an important figure in the neo-Romantic movement of the 1940s as well as a stage designer and illustrator. For the bookplate Craxton drew a portrait of himself resting on a stone stump in what could be seen to be a lush churchyard. The picture breaks perspective which helps alleviate the impression that the newly-weds' names are inscribed upon a tombstone. Undoubtedly few bookplates were printed and so the majority of his books did not feature the original.
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