Recently, I had the opportunity to peruse a private library to purchase some books for the business. I had started a pile but when I came across the book featured in this musing, I knew right away that this was heading to our personal library. I have many books that have the words “Book Collecting” in the title but none like this little volume.
Slightly Foxed – But Still Desirable; Ronald Searle’s Wicked World of Book Collecting; The Folio Society, London, 2015. First published by Souvenir Press in 1989.
I have had a number of Searle’s books over the years and here is the write up I did for “Ronald Searle in Perspective”:
“Ronald Searle needs no introduction. His career as an illustrator has resulted in an astonishing output of work which has appeared in publications all over the world. He has to date published over fifty books; has provided the screen credits for a number of films; has produced some two hundred satirical lithographs and, as a designer to the French Mint, has sculpted more than two dozen commemorative medals in the last ten years. He has been called the most joyously vengeful pictorial satirist England has produced since Cruikshank. Few artists in any medium have stretched themselves so widely and so relentlessly. Ronald Searle in Perspective is the result of a unique selection made by Searle himself, and the variety and richness of his work is amply demonstrated in this collection.”
This book did not take long to read since there are hardly any words in it – mostly just the title of the illustration, found on the page opposite the illustration. Enjoy:
Diet of Worms
A little dog eared but otherwise acceptable
No copy in B.M.
Evidence of some insect damage
Contemporary sheep
Foxed throughout
Disbound
Old style calf
Running title
Early manuscript notes
