"Hajji Baba of Ispahan" by James Morier, illustrated by Cyrus Leroy Baldridge, published by Random House, New York, 1937. First edition with the original price of $3.50 on the front flap, MCMXXXVII (1937) on the title page and copyright. No book club markings, no BOMS imprint on the flaps [the book was created in collaboration with BOMSC and was also issued and distributed as a special BOMS edition with BOMS imprints on the flaps of dj and small dot on the backboard]. The Introduction by Christopher Morley is dated September 1937.

Original dust jacket [wear, creases, several damages: see photos]; hard boards, fully illustrated cloth [dj and cloth have the same design]; 7.1/2" x 10.3/4"; double page color map of Persia, decorated title page, 24 unpaginated pages of contents and introduction + 402 pages with c.100 b/w illustrations and decorations + colophon. Additional "Told by the Derwish" stories on pink paper in the middle [paginated 14 pages] + 10 color plates on heavy paper [all plates are present]; very good condition.

Cyrus Leroy Baldridge (1889-1977) was an artist, illustrator, author and adventurer. When very young, his mother left his father and began a nomadic life as a traveling sales person, selling kitchen equipment from town to town. Devoted to this strong and independent woman, Baldridge's personality absorbed from her a spirit of quite exceptional individualism.

Baldridge's career in art began when the 10-year-old Cyrus was accepted as the youngest student at Frank Holme's Chicago School of Illustration. Baldridge was admitted to the University of Chicago in 1907 and graduated in 1911.

After college, life for Baldridge was both struggle and an exuberant adventure. While looking for commissions as an illustrator, he worked in a Chicago settlement house and in the stockyards. He became a superb rider while training in the Illinois National Guard Cavalry and with that skill worked as a cow hand on the Ranch in Texas for a summer.

Baldridge's reputation as an illustrator was launched in the United States when his battlefield drawings appeared on many covers of Leslie's Weekly and Scribners. His illustrations in Stars and Stripes reached an audience of 530,000 soldiers weekly by the end of the War and many copies were sent home to family and friends.

The Baldridge style was considerably changed by his exposure to the spare lines of Asian, especially Japanese, art. For a short time in the 1920s he worked with Watanabe Shozaburo in Tokyo and the 1930s he used what he had learned to producing a number of fine woodblock prints, etchings and drypoints. This work in pure art, as contrasted with his work as an illustrator, was widely admired and in 1935 he was given the annual award of the Prairie Printmakers of Chicago and at about the same time his etchings were exhibited in the Smithsonian.

Baldridge's long and deep experience with the cultures of Asia, Africa and the Middle East put him in line for important commissions. He illustrated many books and articles with oriental themes the foremost of which were the stunning 1937 reissue of Hajji Baba of Isfahan by James Morier and the 1941 Translations from the Chinese by Arthur Waley. Both books were early Book-of-the-Month Club special editions and their illustrations, distributed separately by the Book of the Month Club, were framed and hung on walls in thousands of homes.

US: Priority (c.2-6 days) ----------- $12.50
Canada: Priority (c.2-7 weeks) ----- $32.50
World: Priority (c.2-10 weeks) ----- $45.50