DROLL STORIES: Thirty Tales Completely Translated Into Modern English by Jacques Le Clercq

3 volumes. LIMITED EDITION, one of 1500 hand-numbered copies SIGNED BY THE DESIGNER, W. A. Dwiggins, and printed by the Southworth Press in Portland, Maine. Each titlepage decorated with a woodcut of three monks, printed in a different colour for each volume (red, blue, or teal) and with large initials and other page decorations throughout printed in the same colours. 8vo, publisher's orignal decorated paper-covered boards in three colours backed in black cloth, the spines gilt decorated and lettered and in the original slipcase with printed label. xxxv, 257, [2]; 263; 245, [1] pp. A essentially pristine set, the bindings fresh and bright, the slipcase is nearly as fine being just a touch mellowed and with a few rubs at the corners.

Edizione: an especially appealing limited edition of balzac in english, and a set in essentially perfect condition. the droll stories were based on giovanni boccaccio's 'the decameron' and were also heavily influenced by françois rabelais. since balzac's death, critics have been intrigued by the contrasts between the droll stories and the novels balzac was writing in the same period. <br> w. a. dwiggins was an important american book designer, typographer, and illustrator. his scathing attack on contemporary book designers in an investigation into the physical properties of books (1919) made him perhaps more responsible than any other american for the marked improvement in book design in the 1920s and 1930s.