VAN SANDWYK, Charles (author and illustrator). An Unexpected Gift. [North Vancouver]: Charles Van Sandwyk Fine Arts. 2013.
8vo. Original cherry-red card jacket exquisitely embellished in green and red foil with border and lettering panel in burnished gilt over gilt card with an onlaid pictorial card plate to upper cover depicting a reindeer and a penguin; pp. [44], including beautiful matt gilt endpapers with a repeating design of holly sprigs in colours; with text pages printed in green on cream laid paper, with decorations in red; with 7 fine full colour plates (including 1 double-page spread), some printed on untrimmed handmade paper, together with other plates and vignettes in sepia and red; a fine copy.
First edition, signed in ink by the artist below the illustration of the penguin and the polar bear with the mistletoe. One of Charles van Sandwyk's sought-after Christmas books. A gentle, and traditional, tale of Bartholomew the Green, cousin of Father Christmas, who leaves Antarctica on a mission to restore an old-fashioned Christmas to a wayward and needy world.
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