At Bromer Booksellers, we focus on the visual book, with fine images that both enhance narrative and stand alone as independent creations. Among our holdings in this area are costume books, emblem books, examples from the Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods, the fantasy illustrators in the tradition of Arthur Rackham, and modern books with original graphics. We look for the successful fusion of picture with text from any century, any country, and across a variety of artistic movements and media. We are especially fascinated with books of other cultures, and you will occasionally find items such as Japanese illustrated woodblock books and Eskimo tales without words ...
Read more about Illustrated Books
1973. Lithographic print, 22 inches tall by 16 inches wide, printed on Arches paper. One of fifty, signed by the artist. Leonard Baskin was an American artist, sculptor, and printmaker. He founded the Gehenna Press while still a student at Yale, and he taught at Smith College in Massachusetts from... More
London: Leonard Smithers, 1898. Quarto. xlv, 193pp. From a total edition of 1,100 copies, this is one of 100 deluxe copies bound in full vellum, with an extra, enlarged set of the five pictorial initials tipped-in. Out of the 24 drawings planned, Beardsley lived only long enough to complete five... More
London / Boston: Elkins Mathews & John Lane / Copeland & Day, 1894. Small quarto. (x), 66, (2)pp., + 13ff. plates. First English and first illustrated edition. One of 125 copies on Japan vellum. In addition to the ten black & white plates after drawings by Aubrey Beardsley listed at... More
(c. 1956). Watercolor and ink on paper, measuring 11 by 8 1/2 inches (28x22cm). Matted and framed. Signed by Bemelmans. This shoulder-length portrait of Bemelmans’s most enduring character is done in the later, bold style encountered in Madeline and the Bad Hat, and it shows red-headed Madeline wearing her characteristic... More
(Athens, OH), Labyrinth Editions, 1982. Folio. (21)ff. From an edition of 130 copies, this is one of 50 with a separate portfolio of signed prints, and an additional, signed, unbound print, measuring 17 by 22 inches. Signed by the printer, Richard Bigus, and by Goldstein and Morrow. Rexroth's collection of... More
(Moscow): 1904. Bright postcard, lithographed in color, showing a cemetery with a wooden structure behind it. Ivan Bilibin first trained as a lawyer, but after traveling through Europe, he became attracted to the art world. He began to draw and became highly successful as a theatrical designer. Besides work for... More
Newtown, PA: Bird & Bull Press, 1984. Quarto. x, 49, 24 pp. + (31)ff. One of 500 copies. Contains three foldout plates, nineteen color reproductions of Japanese watercolors, and 30 illustrated facsimile pages of an eighteenth century Japanese papermaking manual. These woodcut facsimiles are printed on handmade Japanese gampi paper... More
(London): Jo Bird, (2009). 48mo. (22)pp., accordion-fold. A one-of-a-kind artist's book, signed by the artist, printer, and binder, Jo Bird. Folding out from right to left, the leporello is comprised of twenty-two linocuts depicting the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Each calligraphic letter is printed in black ink onto swaths... More
(San Francisco: Black Stone Press, 1980). Oblong 24mo. (30)pp. One of fifty copies, signed by author Kate Pond and printer Shelley Hoyt-Koch. Each letter, printed in red, is accompanied by an illustration in black. Rhymes by Kate Pond, clever and at times unexpected, run across each page spread (e.g. "HORSE... More
Florence, Italy: Michael Angelino Press, (c. 1930s). Small quarto. 264pp. With woodcut cover illustration and five erotic, half-tone reproductions of paintings by Mahlon Blaine. This book is part of the swelling trend in the 1930s for "privately printed" erotic books, which would often be published by anonymous or pseudonymous authors... More
1986. Original ink designs for an alphabet formed from cats, signed and dated by the artist. Blegvad was a prolific children's book artist, whose atmospheric ink drawings are often compared to Gorey and Sendak. His illustrations graced more than 100 picture books, of which the best known is probably Mary... More
Parma: Bodoni, 1800. Folio. Three parts in one. 8, xxvii; 14, xliii; 11, xxxiii pp., + (35)ff. Contains thirty-five stipple-engraved plates, all but one in sepia, showing frescoes by the famed Renaissance painter Correggio at the Monastero de San Paolo in Parma. The engravings were done by Francesco Rosaspina after... More
(London): Fortune Press, (1922). One of 100 deluxe copies with a limited, signed color etching. Warmly inscribed by Jean de Bosschère, "with greetings of spiritual brotherhood." With a color frontispiece, twenty-one full-page plates printed in black & white and sanguine, and numerous black & white illustrations throughout. The volume opens... More
Niles, IL: Dark Harvest, 1986. Two quarto volumes. First edition. One of 52 copies signed by the author and the illustrator, Paul Sonju. A collection of short stories including the 1984 Hugo Award-winning "The Crystal Spheres." Each story features an illustration by Sonju. A very fine copy in bronze paper... More
(N.p. c. 1970s). Silkscreen broadside. The image shows Richard Nixon, printed in blue with his arm raised and two fingers extended in his trademark salute, under the red word "Impeachment." Nixon's form is cleverly constructed from various post office stamps, including "Void" taking the shape of his mouth, "Cancelled" standing..... More
Maastricht: Halcyon Press, 1930. Small quarto. (70)pp. One of 376 copies, this printed on Dutch Pannekoek laid paper with the watermark of the Halcyon Press. Buckland Wright's characteristically rich woodcuts throughout. This is the first published book of John Buckland Wright, who had exhibited his early work in Belgium and... More
The Hague: J.B.W. Editions, 1935 (i.e. 1956). Small quarto. (14)pp. Although the colophon indicates a limitation of 50 copies, only 25 were actually bound and issued. This is the French version of the poem, printed for the artist in Holland before the war. Copies were available from Golden Cockerel at... More
Maastricht: Halcyon Press, 1932. Small quarto. 170pp. One of 206 copies. Buckland Wright's swarthy and sumptuous illustrations, one full-page wood engraving for each of the ten stories, invite the reader to fully engross themselves in Poe's twisted tales. Printed on Barcham Green's handmade paper with special watermark. Initials by A.... More
(San Francisco: 2010). Quarto. 10ff. Original calligraphic manuscript by Ingmire of the text from a section of Paz’s poem “Blanco.” This poem, which was published in 1967, has been linked to Paz’s time in India, and it can be read as a figurative exploration of Indian religious philosophy. “The spirit..... More
NY: D. Appleton and Co., 1866. Octavo. (v)ff., 192pp. First edition, second issue. With forty-two illustrations by John Tenniel. Carroll’s enduring tale of a child’s dreamworld was first issued in 1865 by Macmillan and Company of London, but Carroll and Tenniel were unhappy with the print quality of the illustrations..... More
Rome: Società Editrice Dante Alighieri, 1898. Oblong octavo. (60)pp. One of 200 copies. Illustrated with seventeen chromolithographed plates, which accompany a series of musical arrangements by Salvatore Saya, with lyrics by the Italian poet Ugo Fleres. Together with twenty-one of Giuseppe Cellini’s original watercolor and ink drawings for Calendario dell’Anno..... More
1977. A delightful 15 by 11-inch painting of a large gnarled tree, its branches forming a leafy canopy over a portion of meadow grown thick with green grasses and pink thistle. The tree is painted with a wooden sign nailed crookedly to its trunk, bearing the artist's signature and date... More
(Portland, OR): Chamberlain Press, 1984. Small octavo. (24)ff. One of 150 copies signed by Chamberlain. The text, translated by Boris Artzybasheff, is ornamented with ten full-page wood engravings by Chamberlain, each printed in black and three colors. Text pages are ornamented with leafy vines, printed in green. Extremely fine in... More
Concord, NH: Boyd & White, 1839. 16mo. 16pp. Illustrated with numerous woodcuts throughout. The title page notes that this is the fourth number in the seventh series; the previous year, the Riddler was in the sixth series, suggesting that this was an annual. Although many of the riddles were likely... More
Boston: Taggard & Thompson, 1858. 16mo. 31pp. Nine full-page color engravings, illustrating key scene's in the titular fox's antics in his journey to find food for his family. He finds a farm, confounds the animals, and captures a goose, only to again resort to his cunning ways to escape the... More
