Siegfried & The Twilight of the Gods FIRST EDITION
London; New York: William Heinemann; Doubleday Page & Co., 1911.
First Edition. Hardcover. The Ring of the Nibelung—Richard Wagner's iconic cycle of four musical dramas inspired by Norse mythology, Germanic legend, and the Nibelungenlied—finds its glorious, fiery end here, in this 1911 first edition of Siegfried and The Twilight of the Gods, the second and third days respectively in Wagner's Ring Cycle, illustrated by Arthur Rackham (1867-1939), hero of the Golden Age of Illustration. In Rackham's 30 epic mounted and tissue-guarded color plates, we meet in true form the fearless Siegfried, raised by dwarves to slay the dragon Fafnir and regain the magic ring he guards, his tragic lover: the Valkyrie Brunnhilde, the scheming siblings who seek to destroy their union, the water nymphs of the River Rhine who try to warn him, and the three Norns who shape human fates and divine the burning of Valhalla and the end of the gods in his wake...
10 1/4" X 7 3/4". ix, 182pp. Present nicely in protective archival jacket. Bound in tan woven cloth over boards, with Siegfried, surrounded by fire and dragons, stamped in gilt to upper board, with dragon eating its tail to spine, both lettered in gilt. Mild wear to binding, with some soiling to cloth, gentle bumping to extremities, and rather harder scattered rubbing. Pictorial endpapers depict the naked Rhine-Maidens in their native river, line drawn in orange. Hint of spine near rear endpapers; binding remains quite firm and sound. Occasional foxing to pages throughout, else unmarked. Complete in 30 tissue-guarded color plates, a title vignette of the Norns reading the future from threads over a dragon's corpse, and several small black and white decorations throughout. Very good. Item #16419
Price: $325.00