William Tell Told Again

Lot 120
28.09.2023 13:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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£ 5 292
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1016406
Lot 120 | William Tell Told Again
Estimate value
£ 4 000 – 6 000
William Tell Told Again

P. G. Wodehouse

WODEHOUSE, P. G. (1881-1975). William Tell Told Again. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1904.



Presentation copy of the first edition of a rare early Wodehouse work. We are unable to trace any presentation copy at auction. In 1961, Evelyn Waugh wrote: ‘collectors prize as bibliographical rarities such early works as William Tell Told Again’ (quoted in Wodehouse: Man and Myth, pp.88-89). Wodehouse biographer Richard Usborne called the novel ‘a short, cheerful narrative by Wodehouse [with] excellent colour pictures by Philip Dadd and excellent verse captions to the pictures, by John W. Houghton – very much the sort of expert verse Wodehouse himself was already writing, in Punch and elsewhere’ (Wodehouse Companion, p.135). McIlvaine A5a.



Octavo. Title with publisher's device printed in red, colour-printed frontispiece and 15 plates by Phillip Dadd, each plate accompanied by a verse by John W. Houghton printed onto protective tissue guard, 2pp. of advertisements for Wodehouse books at end (scattered spotting throughout, accompanying verse to plate IV crudely repaired, p.75 with some loss to a few letters as a result of previous adhesion). Original pictorial buff cloth with illustration in green black and brown, spine and upper cover lettered in gilt, top edge gilt (extremities rubbed, corners bumped and head and tail caps lightly bruised, rear hinge with small split); original pictorial dust-jacket by Philip Dadd, which repeats the design of plate X, green label to spine (a little soiled, a few small tears and chips to edges, green label rubbed). Provenance: authorial presentation inscription dated 22 November 1904 to ‘Mrs Speed’.

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