The Book of the Sagas
London and New York: Ernest Nister and E. P. Dutton & Co., no date. Hardcover. 8 1/2 by 6 inches; 215 by 158 mm. 320 pages. Hardcove, in very good condition. Bound in brown cloth with beveled boards. Some forward lean to spine, a bit of wear to the covers, finger marks in a few margins; tiny brown speckles to margins of plate opposite page 203. Generally a bright, solid copy of a nicely designed book. No date of publication given, but title page states "No. 3920". The spine is lettered and decorated in gilt, and the front board features a gilt title and a gilt-stamped warrior in a decorative black-stamped frame. All edges gilt. Printed in Bavaria on coated paper. Illustrated by Gordon Browne. Color frontispiece and five other full-page color plates, twelve full-page black-and-white plates, and numerous other illustrations in the text. A retelling of Icelandic sagas and other Norse tales of legendary men and women; most of the stories selected for the book were first recorded between the years 1140 and 1220. Item #897
Small bookstore stamp at lower edge of rear pastedown, "Fanny Butcher Books/75 East Adams Street/Chicago". Butcher, who died in 1987 at age 99, spent fifty years as a reporter and editor at the Chicago Tribune, including 40 years as its literary editor. She began working at the newspaper in 1913, and in 1920 she opened a store that came to serve as a literary salon in the city. The Caxton Club, Chicago's prominent fine-books organization, recently called her "an Oprah of her day regarding books."
Price: $50.00