THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. With Illustrations by Howard Pyle

First Edition. Illustrated with a portrait frontispieces, full page gravures throughout, and a profusion of illustrations throughout the two volumes and within the text, all by Howard Pyle. 8vo, publisher’s original terra-cotta cloth, the covers and spines elaborately decorated with gilt designs and gilt lettering, t.e.g., the binding design by Sarah Whitman. xvi, 219; vi, [221]-474 including index pp. A very fine, unusually clean and bright set of this classic work.

Edizione: a very pleasing set of this famous edition, illustrated by one of america’s greatest artists of the period. one of the quirkiest and most charming books in american literature. the grolier catalogue of one hundred influential american books printed before 1900 calls it the "distillation of the intellectual and cultural life of new england at its brahmin zenith." "autocrat" first appeared in serial form in the first issue of the atlantic monthly. it blends the discursive and whimsically comprehending talk of a boardinghouse sage with verses, both light and serious.<br> as to the illustrator-- pyle emphasized to his “art students the importance of total immersion, a kind of physical and mental projection into the picture until the artist senses that he has actually become the object. only in this manner, pyle emphasized, can the subject come to life in the painting. ‘pictures are the creations of the imagination and not of technical facility.i subordinate that technical training entirely to the training of the imagination.’”-susan meyer.