Title: THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER, OR THE BLACK ...
Publisher: George Allen, Sunnyside, Orpington, Kent.
Publication Date: 1884
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Edition: 1st
No date [1884]. Engraved frontispiece, decorative engraved title page, 64 printed pages. 20 wood-engraved illustrations in text. Green floral patterned endpapers. Centre gathering slightly loose. Inner hinge split but remaining firm. uniform age-toning of the half-title and last leaf due to offseting from end-papers. 14.5 x 19.5 cm. In the original dark green pebble cloth. The upper cover with gilt lettering below the embossed image of the South-West Wind character in gilt. Upper corners very slightly worn. A very good copy. A fantasy about three brothers, two of them cruel and the last one noble. Lewis Caroll is said to have owned two copies of this book. Ruskin wrote it and gave it to a very young female friend without any idea of publication in 1841. Over a decade later the book emerged and was proposed to some publishers. Richard Doyle produced the illustrations and it became popular, running into many editions. This is the first George Allen edition. Allen worked, travelled and published with the great victorian writer John Ruskin (1819-1900), from their first meeting in 1854 at the London Working Men's College until Ruskin's death in 1900. Sunnyside, Orpington, Kent (where this was published) was Allen's large family home, office and studio. Ruskin's last recorded visit to Sunnyside (he was a very frequent guest there since Allen moved there in 1874) was in 1888, towards the end of April, when he travelled down to Orpington on the 30th, and stayed with the Allen family for two days. Although builders were working and the house was in a state of upheaval, he said on leaving that the place felt more like home than any other he had been in for a long time, and he made a special request that the new arrangements in progress should include rooms to be reserved for himself whenever he felt he needed a change of scene. Unfortunately, with his failing health, Ruskin was never to visit Sunnyside again. Bookseller Inventory # 4318