Item #61390 Earth Inferno. Austin Osman SPARE.
Earth Inferno.
Earth Inferno.
Earth Inferno.
Earth Inferno.
Earth Inferno.

Earth Inferno.

London: Privately Published. 1905. First Edition. Hardcover. Folio (18" x 13.75"). 30pp. Original brown paper wrappers with black title etc. to front wrapper. Secured with cloth ties at spine. Eleven large black and white illustrations (mostly full page) and numerous decorations by Spare throughout. The scarce first edition of Spare's first published book, SIGNED and numbered by the author. The book was printed for Spare at the Co-operative Printing Society in Tudor Street, London, in February 1905, in an edition of 265 signed and numbered copies. There were several different binding variants of the book, although the majority were in brown wrappers thus. This copy numbered 165, and signed by Spare on the limitation page. "Earth Inferno" was a truly remarkable first book. In it the young artist juxtaposed huge, sometimes sinister images with teasing lyrics to create a vivid image of the darkly magical philosophy which informed his world-view. The front wrapper has one thin vertical scrape, both wrappers are lightly rubbed and have a few small chips and tears around the edges. Lower cloth tie perished. Occasional modest foxing throughout, but still a very nice, clean, example of a truly scarce and important work. Item #61390

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