Bidspirit auction | 1937 Fabre, Jean-Henri. Fabre’s Book

1937 Fabre, Jean-Henri. Fabre’s Book of Insects. Tudor, 1937. New Edition, Sixth Printing. - A large quarto-sized hardcover copy of Fabre’s Book of Insects, a retelling of Jean-Henri Fabre’s Souvenirs Entomologiques by Mrs. Rodolph Stawell, based on the translation by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. This edition features illustrations by E.J. Detmold and was published in New York by the Tudor Publishing Company. The copyright page states a 1921 copyright by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., and identifies this specific volume as the Sixth Printing, January, 1937, of the New Edition first issued in August 1935. The volume is bound in green cloth with decorative gilt-stamped titles and motifs, including a winged scarab on the front cover and a wasp on the spine. The interior contains twelve tipped-in color plates on heavy cream stock, each protected by a tissue guard bearing a printed descriptive caption. Provenance marks include a graphic bookplate on the front pastedown for James Alexander Barton, depicting a knight on horseback, and a handwritten ink inscription on the front flyleaf reading, Pearl C. Warden - December 1937 -. A small pencil notation in the upper right corner of the front pastedown reads 500 F-10 E. The title page includes a black-ink vignette of a wasp and red-ink lettering for the title, author, illustrator, and publisher. The binding shows moderate shelf wear with rubbing and fading to the green cloth and gilt stamping on the front cover (photo 1) and spine (photo 3). Fraying is visible at the spine ends and corner tips (photo 1, 3). The internal hinges appear strained with some separation visible at the front flyleaf (photo 5). The interior pages show minor toning and light foxing concentrated at the edges (photo 12). The tipped-in color plates remain vibrant and well-adhered, and the printed tissue guards are intact, though some show light creasing or marginal toning (photo 7, 10).