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
Philadelphia: Benjamin Warner, (c. 1810). 12mo. (4)pp. Contains the alphabet (excluding j and u) with illustrations and street vendors' cries, printed in six compartments per page. A very fine copy in the original olive wrappers, on which are printed upper and lower-case alphabets and two unattributed woodcuts. Mild edgewear and..... More
NY: E. M. Leavens Co., 1918. Quarto. (12)pp. Bold, colorful illustrations of the American West, including American Indians, cowboys, stage coaches, and frontier cabins, accompany explanatory text, printed in blue, red, and brown. Bound in color printed wrappers. Some bumping to corners, tiny tear at bottom of rear cover, else..... More
London: Griffith & Farran, 1876. Quarto. 21pp. Illustrations and text printed together anastatically. Kemp's elaborate calligraphy and illustrations imbue her rhymes with whimsy, making them more worthy of the category of fairy tale rather than nursery rhyme. Exceedingly rare. Bound in red cloth stamped in black and gold. Light soiling..... More
London: Methuen, (1927). First edition. Number two of 200 copies, printed on handmade paper and signed by A.A. Milne and Ernest H. Shepard. This famous collection of children's verses, featuring Milne's son Christopher Robin and his bear, is illustrated throughout with Shepard's whimsical drawings. Bound in quarter cloth with orange..... More
Esslingen: J. F. Schreiber, 1920. An unusual unused booklet with "magic leaves," which reveal a picture when lightly passed over with a pencil. For obvious reasons, it is especially rare to find such as this with a clean interior. Oblong 32mo. (8)ff. Bound in pictorial wrappers featuring an old-fashioned horse..... More
Paris: La Bibliotheque de Arts, 1968. Quarto. 130pp. Of an edition of 600 copies, this is one of 40 with two original engravings numbered signed by Ciry. In this copy, one engraving is of Salome, completed in 1949, and the other is of Saint Sebastian, completed in 1950. The catalog..... More
San Francisco, CA: Hosfelt Gallery, 1997. Three octavo volumes. (30); (30); (30)ff. One of 100 copies, signed by Wegner in the volume titled "Remarks on Color." The other volumes are titled "Remarks" and "Color," and, as the division of names suggests, these first two volumes' disparate parts are combined in..... More
Zurich: J. H. Locher, (c. 1848). 48mo. (21)ff. accordion-fold. A panorama of color illustrations for each of the twenty-two Swiss cantons. Each image depicts Swiss citizens in traditional garb and at work or leisure characteristic to their canton; two cantons, Valais and Tessin, share an illustration. Date derived from the..... More
(France / China: c. 1900). Octavo. (22)pp. Album of Chinese landscapes in original watercolors, facing depictions of women's antique costumes painted on silk, interleaved with tissue. "Chinoiserie" refers to European art characterized by imagery of a romanticized China, a notion that similarly underpins the genre of costume books, which presented..... More
London: Gogmagog Press, (1977). Octavo. (30)pp., frenchfold. One of 90 copies printed on handmade mingei paper, and signed by the author/artist. Illustrated with four dramatic two-page colored intaglio prints by Cox, showing Victorian death scenes, two of them somewhat surrealist in influence. Cox's poems offer a modern twist on sentimental..... More
NY: Century Co., (c. 1933). Octavo. (x), 246pp. Copiously illustrated by Palmer Cox. This was the first adventure of the Brownies written in prose, and it is advertised as having "a detailed, connected story, with a beginning, a middle and an end." A later issue, with the text, binding, and..... More
(Weimar): Cranach Press, 1931. Tall octavo. 31, (1)pp. From an edition of 268 copies, this is one of 200 copies on handmade Maillol-Kessler paper. Printed in red and black and illustrated throughout with wood engravings and decorated initials by Eric Gill. This ancient dialogue between the Bride and Groom is..... More
(Weimar): Cranach Press, 1931. Tall octavo. 32, (2)pp. From the French edition of 164 copies, this is one of 50 on Japon. Printed in blue and black, and illustrated throughout with eleven wood engravings and decorative initials by Eric Gill. This ancient dialogue between the Bride and Groom is one..... More
London: David Nutt, 1897. 16mo. xii, 289pp. Frontispiece, ornate title page, chapter headers, and tail-pieces by Walter Crane evoke romance and nostalgia, befitting this revised edition of La Fontaine's tales. Bound in full red calf with gilt borders, title, and fox to upper cover. Fox motif continues in four of..... More
(Thetford, VT): Cricket Press, 1965. Quarto. (12)ff. One of twenty-two copies. Subtitled "The First Miracle, John 2," the book tells the story of the Wedding at Cana. The text is printed in red, and faces the tipped-in illustrations. Heavily influenced by Leonard Baskin's early work, there are nine exquisitely fine..... More
Boston: Impressions Workshop Inc./Cricket Press, 1965. Square quarto. (16)ff. One of 150 copies, signed on the colophon page by the poet, Bernard Bockes, and the illustrator, George Lockwood. Illustrated with fifteen fanciful woodcuts by Lockwood depicting insects, bats, dragons, and mythical beasts. Some are monochromatic prints, but others incorporate many..... More
Chelsea: (Southernwood Press, c. 1915). Small quarto. (23)ff. One of thirty copies printed on handmade paper. Illustrated throughout by Josephine Winser. The drawings illustrate popular nursery rhymes, including Humpty Dumpty, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Jack & Jill, and Sing a Song of Sixpence. Children take center stage in these depictions..... More
London: Soncino Press, 1930. Small quarto. xl, (3), 209pp. One of nine copies printed on Roman Vellum, signed by the editor, Cecil Roth, and the illustrator, Albert Rutherston. With fourteen full-page stencilled illustrations, plus seventy small ornaments, all in color. Rutherston's bright depictions of the Passover story, including illustrations of..... More
Sherman Oaks, CA: Joseph J. D'Ambrosio, 1982. Octavo. (21)ff. One of fifty copies. Signed by D'Ambrosio at the title page, as well as below each of the four original serigraphs that comprise the book's central section, "Ladies of the Garden." Illustrated throughout with images of flora as backdrops to the..... More
(Albany: Print Club of Albany), 1989. Broadside measuring 15 by 19 inches. One of 100 copies, signed by the artist. The Print Club of Albany's Annual Print for 1988-1989, it's 55th Presentation Print. This lithograph is the last of a series of prints by Dallman that explores industrial and residential..... More
Maple Shade, NJ: Pickering Press, 1985. Octavo. (28)pp., frenchfold. One of 100 copies printed in black and brown. "A warm, witty, wry collection of observations by famous (& infamous) writers who 'draw the line in such a way as to define themselves.'" (Prospectus). This charming little book is printed in..... More
Tuscaloosa: Legacy Press, 2000. Octavo. x, 154pp., + 5 specimens. One of 130 copies, signed by both Baker and DePol at the colophon. Replete with reproductions of DePol's many pattern designs, both for his papers and from engravings. Baker's accompanying text, which includes a biographical sketch, provides necessary context, both..... More
Maple Shade, NJ: Pickering Press, 1984. Octavo. (18)pp. One of 100 copies. Highly illustrated with wood engravings printed in blue and black, including a frontispiece of Pickering and various printer's devices. Afterword by the printer, John Anderson. Example of Pickering's work tipped in. Bound in blue wrappers with decorative paper..... More
Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Library, 1980. Quarto. 19pp. One of 90 copies. This book, printed in two colors, was produced in honor of Anderson's 65th birthday, is illustrated with wood engravings by John DePol, and includes contributions from seven people, including DePol, Claire Van Vliet and Harry Volk, Jr. Trace..... More
Council Bluffs, Iowa: Yellow Barn Press, 1986. Octavo. xvi, 39pp., + 4ff. of samples. One of 150 copies. Inscribed at the colophon by DePol and the printer, Neil Shaver, to Alan Dietch. A colorful selection of DePol's woodcut patterns presented as zinc engravings and, at the appendix, as tip-ins. As..... More
