A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Illustrated by William Heath Robinson, Limited Edition

William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Illustrated by William Heath Robinson

Easton Press Deluxe Limited Edition

Limited to 250 Hand Numbered Copies

MINT Condition – Still in the Publisher’s Shrinkwrap

This is a limited edition recreation of William Heath Robinson’s 1914 illustrated edition of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” published by the Easton Press with a limitation of 250 hand numbered copies. The book comes with a numbered Certificate of Authenticity but the edition number is unknown as the book is in the original packaging and is still sealed. Shakespeare's immortal tale of misplaced love is unlike any Easton Press has ever published. It contains not only the complete text of A Midsummer Night's Dream, but also includes 12 stunning full-color plates by the great master William Heath Robinson, each hand-mounted on gold stamped, de-bossed pages and protected by hand-applied tissue guards. Measuring 11” x 8.5” and containing 232 pages, the book also includes 66 delightful black-and-white illustrations.

Chris T. Adamson writing on the fine press review website Books and Vines provides the best summary of this edition, “One of my favorite of Easton Press’s Deluxe Limited Editions is their facsimile of William Heath Robinson’s 1914 illustrated edition of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It includes 12 full-color plates by William Heath Robinson, each hand-mounted on gold stamped, de-bossed pages and protected by hand-applied tissue guards. In addition, there are 66 black-and-white illustrations.  The color plates are really stunning, and the black and whites just jump out at you.  Best of all, the imagery is perfect, exactly following and portraying the greatness of the story itself.

W. Heath Robinson is best known for drawings of eccentric machines.  The name “Heath Robinson” became part of common parlance in the UK for complex inventions that achieved absurdly simple results.   However, it is his book illustrations which are so treasured by lovers of classic literature.  These include Danish Fairy Tales and Legends (1897); The Arabian Nights, (1899); Tales From Shakespeare (1902), and Twelfth Night (1908), Andersen’s Fairy Tales (1913), The Water Babies (1915), and  Peacock Pie (1916).  However, his best and most famous work is his work for the 1914 edition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream which is what Easton Press has so finely reproduced. This Deluxe Limited Edition includes:

• Illustrations in pen and ink and color plates by W. Heath Robinson
• Hand-marbled endpages by Peggy Skycraft of Skycraft Designs, Estacada, Oregon
• Mohawk Superfine text paper specially milled by Mohawk Fine Papers of Cohoes, New York
• Cowhide leather imported from Italy by Cortina Leathers of New York, New York
• Lithography by Falcon Press, Nashville, Tennessee
• Color plates hand-tipped and binding by Kingsport Book, Church Hill, Tennessee
• The edition is strictly limited to 250 copies (as was the 1914 edition)
• Comes with a protective fabric-covered clamshell case
• The book is hand-numbered and include a Certificate of Authenticity bearing the matching number.

The book is in MINT condition and still in the original publisher’s shrinkwrap.

Stock photographs of the book and the prospectus appear below. Although the thumbnails may appear digitized, you can click your mouse on the thumbnail to view the picture in the photo viewer.