T.+Mackenzie

“Born in Bradford, Yorkshire, Mackenzie [1887-1944] studied at the Bradford College of Art and then at the Slade. When he finished his studies, he was commissioned by the publisher James Nisbet to illustrate in watercolour an edition of Arthur and His Knights [1920]. Most of his illustrative work shows the influence of Beardsley, Harry Clarke and colour plate illustrators like Kay Nielsen. The Crock of Gold [1926], for example, is illustrated with twelve colour plates and black and white decorative headings and tailpieces. He was also an etcher and engraver and contributed to the Sketch and other journals”

James Stephens’s “The Crock of Gold,” Illustrated by Thomas Mackenzie [MACKENZIE, Thomas, illustrator]. STEPHENS, James. The Crock of Gold. With Twelve Illustrations in Colour and Decorative Headings and Tailpieces by Thomas Mackenzie. London: Macmillan and Co., 1926. Limited to 525 copies on handmade paper, signed by the author. Quarto (11 1/8 x 7 1/8 inches; 282 x 195 mm.). vii, [1, blank], 227, [1] pp. Twelve mounted color plates (including frontispiece), with descriptive tissue guards. Original quarter vellum over blue paper boards. Spine lettered in gilt. Top edge rough cut, others uncut. Some mild soiling to spine and minor rubbing to lower corners. Otherwise a fine copy. “A novel by James Stephens mixing realism, fairy tale, and fantasy. [The Crock of Gold (1912)] concerns the separate quests undertaken by the Philosopher, the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath (his wife), and Caitilin Ní Murrachu (a peasant girl), during which they meet with the gods Pan and Angus Og. These encounters bring about Caitilin’s sexual awakening and lead the Philosopher and his wife to a more balanced view of life, overcoming dichotomies between male and female, reason and emotion…The novel draws on the thought of Blake and Nietzsche to explore issues of life, death, gender selfhood, and social order. There is also much comedy involving talking animals, bungling policemen, and leprechauns and their crocks of gold” (The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature).

A crowd of pig-tailed Chinamen who bowed.
Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp JAMES NISBET & CO 1919