An Alphabet.

[London: William Heinemann, 1898.]. FIRST EDITION. DELUXE LIMITED EDITION [50 copies - or less]*. Original cream cloth cloth portfolio (47.5 x 39 cm.), renewed silk ties, internal brown paper flaps carefully restored, contained in a modern half black morocco solander box, with blind stamped borders and gilt lettered label to spine. 26 full page hand-coloured woodblocks (25 x 20 cm.) , each signed by the artist (except "H" which is present but not signed) including the two plates "E for Executioner" and "T for Topers" which were suppressed for the trade editions, all loose as issued mounted on card (43 x 35.5 cm.). All the prints clean and bright with just minor toning at the extremities of the card mounts. *Colin Campbell (William Nicholson The Graphic Work, 1992) notes that the size of this edition was not formally announced by Heinemann, whose advertisements merely stated that a few copies were available. However, in a letter to Haldane Macfall dated December 20, 1897, William Heinemann says "we guarantee that only fifty of these [hand-coloured sets] are printed". In fact this may well be an exaggeration since in a letter dated 17 January 1956 from A.S. Frere (then Chairman of Heinemann) to Stanley Scott he states that "we have been able to find a record which reveals that the total number of the edition recorded as being finished was 30, of which 18 went to Russell, New York, 10 to Heinemann and 2 to Trade". The "Executioner" and "Topers" designs used to illustrate the letters "E" and "T" in this deluxe edition, designed for collectors, were deemed inappropriate for children and so were replaced in the Popular and Library lithographed editions by "Earl" and "Trumpeter". Campbell (25, A).