THE CROCK OF GOLD (SIGNED); WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR AND DECORATIVE HEADINGS AND TAILPIECES BY THOMAS MACKENZIE (SIGNED)

London, England: Macmillan and Co. Limited, 1926. Limited (1/525). Hardcover. Very Good / Very Good (slipcase). Thomas MacKenzie. Quarto, 11.25 in. x 7.9 in., pp. vi, [1], 228. Illustrated with color frontispiece with captioned tissue-guard, eleven other color glued-in prints, and ink headings and tailpieces by Thomas MacKenzie. Signed by the author on limitation page. One of 525 copies printed by R & R. Clark on handmade paper. Half vellum over light blue paper boards with gilt title to spine. Untrimmed edges. Light rubbing to extremities. Paper boards bubbling on lower right front corner. Two dime-sized brown stains to upper back board. Shelfwear to top/bottom of spine. Interior pages unmarked; pages and plates are bright. Vellum slipcase with cloth rim and purple interior. James Stephens (9 February 1880 - 26 December 1950) was an Irish novelist and poet. Stephens himself claimed to have been born on the same day and same year as James Joyce (2 February 1882), whereas he is in fact probably the same James Stephens who is on record as being born at the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, on 9 February 1880, the son of Francis Stephens (c. 1840-1882/3), a vanman and a messenger for a stationer's office, and his wife, Charlotte Collins (b. c. 1847). His father died when Stephens was two years old, and when he was six years old, his mother remarried, and Stephens was committed to the Meath Protestant Industrial School for Boys in Blackrock, where he spent much of the rest of his childhood.

By the early 1900s Stephens was increasingly inclined to socialism and the Irish language (he spoke and wrote Irish) and by 1912 was a dedicated Irish Republican. He was a close friend of the 1916 leader Thomas MacDonagh, who was then editor of The Irish Review and deputy headmaster in St Enda's, the radical bilingual Montessori school run by PH Pearse and later manager of the Irish Theatre. Stephens spent much time with MacDonagh in 1911. He worked as registrar in the National Gallery of Ireland between 1915 and 1925.

James Stephens produced many retellings of Irish myths. His retellings are marked by a rare combination of humour and lyricism. He also wrote several original novels (The Crock of Gold, Etched in Moonlight, Demi-Gods) based loosely on Irish wonder tales. The Crock of Gold in particular has achieved enduring popularity and has often been reprinted. Stephens began his career as a poet under the tutelage of poet and painter Æ (George William Russell). Stephens's first book of poems, Insurrections, was published in 1909. His last book, Kings and the Moon (1938), was also a volume of verse.


Thomas Mackenzie (1887-1944), an English artist and illustrator, was born in Bradford, England, Thomas Mackenzie was an artist, producing illustrations for books, and watercolours during the early 20th century. His earliest commissioned works for James Stephens' The Crock of Gold (1912) and Arthur Ransome's Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp in Rhyme (1919). His illustrations are reminiscent of the work of his Art Nouveau peers, including Kay Nielsen and Harry Clarke.