THE FAMOUS TRAGEDY OF THE RICH JEW OF MALTA by RAVILIOUS, ERIC, Illustrator. MARLOWE, CHRISTOPHER - 1933

London: Golden Hours Press, 1933. No. 74(a) OF 250 COPIES, of which 200 were for sale. 285 x 205 mm. (11 1/8 x 8"). 2 p.l., 86, [2] pp. Contemporary green buckram over bevelled boards, gilt titling to upper cover and smooth spine. WITH FOUR FINE WOOD ENGRAVINGS BY ERIC RAVILIOUS. Colophon page with remnants of tipped-in note. Binding a little faded at edges, very short slit to cloth covering top edge of rear board, free endpapers a bit browned, otherwise very fine. With four of the largest wood engravings produced by Eric Ravilious, this is one of just three books produced at the short-lived Golden Hours Press before its founders took over the Golden Cockerel Press. Christopher Sandford and Francis Newbury established Golden Hours in 1932, but closed after one year when the opportunity arose to acquire a respected private press. At the time they closed the press, they sold unbound copies of the present work to publishers Hollis & Carter, who had them bound and sold them with an "(a)" after the copy number in the colophon. A note tipped onto the page to explain this numbering was removed from our copy. Designer, painter, and illustrator Ravilious (1903-42) trained at the Royal College of Art, where he studied wood engraving with Paul Nash. DNB praises his "distinctive and controlled linear style, exploring architectural space and landscape laden with reverie and suggestion, populated by doll-like figures, and designed with a pattern of black and white." He also illustrated works for the Golden Cockerel Press, Curwen Press, and Cresset Press. Ravilious was invited to serve as a War Artist in 1939, and though he produced some of his best work in that role, it also led to his untimely end when an air-sea rescue flight, on which he was an observer, disappeared over the North Atlantic. The text here is based on the standard Oxford edition of Marlowe's works, taken primarily from the 1633 quarto.