[10] pp. Text in French. Illustrated with 4 collotype plates reproducing wash drawings by John Buckland Wright; suite of 5 etchings by J. Buckland Wright pulled from trial plates, loose in cloth sleeve along with printed note by Mary Buckland Wright regarding the edition. 11½x8¼, bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe in full vellum with illustration in gilt on front board, spine lettered in gilt, cloth slipcase. Letter G of 23 copies of the second series, from a run of 50 copies printed.
A John Buckland Wright rarity, the text printed in 1936 by Mouton & Co. in The Hague (though the title-page is dated 1935), the collotype reproductions of the wash drawings and the pulls from the trial etchings made in 1956, as was the accompanying printed note, and the book bound and issued in 1972. This copy was purchased directly from Mary Buckland Wright, and the collector wrote to her about the edition. She responded with a typewritten letter dated 3/74, describing in detail the origins of the present issue of the book. The original of the letter has been lost, but a transcript was made, and it reads in part: "It is quite understandable that some confusion should have arisen over my late husband’s J. B-W Editions. He never had a ‘publishing house’ in the accepted sense. Before the last War he began to produce the above-named private editions; books in small editions which were sold privately to collectors... 3. The Apres-midi d’un faune, French text. The printed sheets for this last book were printed in Holland by Mouton & Co., The Hague, in 1936. They remained there throughout the War. After the War they were sent to us in London. My husband fully intended continuing with his own editions, but his time was fully occupied with work for the Golden Cockerel Press and his teaching. He made several experimental illustrations, but he remained dissatisfied. After his death in 1954, I found four superb wash drawings for L’Apres-midi d’un faune (Mallarme) which showed that he had finally found the type of illustration he felt suited the text. They would, of course, have been engraved or more probably etched, had he lived. In 1956, Christopher Sandford, Editor of the Golden Cockerel Press, undertook to publish the drawings in a G.C.P. edition admirably reproduced in collotype by the Chiswick Press. The G.C.P. used the Aldous Huxley translation and offered to distribute an edition by me of the French text, with the collotype illustrations, bound in white sheepskin. 25 copies of this edition were sold. These 25 were quite different in style from the G.C.P. edition... In 1968, the Private Libraries Association published a book on my husband and his work by A. Reid. It contains a Check-list of his illustrated publications. Mr. David Chambers, of the P.L.A. suggested to me that the remaining sheets and illustrations for the Apres-midi d’un faune, should be bound in parchment by Messrs. Sangorski & Sutcliffe, and published at L50.0. Unfortunately only 23 copies were available as two sets had become foxed..." (A complete transcript of the letter accompanies the lot.)