Frederick Catherwood, Archt. by Victor Wolfgang von Hagen; Aldous Huxley (intro.) - 1950

New York: Oxford University Press, 1950. First Edition, First Printing. Original cloth. Very good +/good +. Frederick Catherwood. Very good+ first edition, first printing [HAND V94]. With an introduction by Aldous Huxley. Blue cloth boards with gilt title stamping on cover and spine. In a good+, unclipped dust jacket showing original $5.00 price. Dust jacket has developed some chips, tears and toning, especially at top edge. Dust jacket now protected in a clear, removable, archival cover. Former owner's bookplate on front pastedown. From the private library of Larry Southwick, collector's marginalia pencilled near front hinge. Fully illustrated from Catherwood's original drawings. 177 pp. Octavo. A brief biography of Frederick Catherwood, the little known, indisnct, forgotten artist-archaeologist whose lifetime was dogged by bad luck and whose lifework -- the discovery and reproduction of the Mayan civilization- has been obscured. Von Hagen, an explorer in his own right- is here "an explorer of explorers" as he recreates the man, patient, precise, reticent, restrained, who was in his younger years a member of the "Keats circle". Coming to America, his friendship with John Lloyd Stephens led to the first expedition to Central America where "through rain, rubble and revolution" Catherwood copied the Mayan designs- later used to illustrate Stephens' book. A second expedition was followed by his own book- and the 25 superb lithographs used there are reproduced here. And after a third trip to South America, as a surveyor for the railroads, and defeated by the climate and labor troubles, Catherwood gave up and died at sea on the return to England. Although of primary interest in artistic, archaeological fields, this life story is in itself a quixotic, ironic one. A beautiful piece of bookmaking. --- Kirkus Review