SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM. The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke. Weimar: Cranach Presse, 1930. One of 300 copies on regular paper, this copy 10 (there were also 15 copies on Imperial Japanese paper and 7 copies on animal vellum). Full crimson morocco, the deluxe issue binding by Otto Dõrfner, signed on the rear turn-in; covers with single gilt rules, spine with five raised bands, top edge gilt. 14 x 9 inches (35 x 23 cm); 186, [2] pp.; with the 35-page "Notes on the Text of Shakespeare's Hamlet, 1604" inserted into rear cover pocket as issued. Printed in orange and black (in the typeface designed for the press by Edward Johnston) on Gaspard Maillol's handmade paper, the "Notes" bound in salmon Maillol-Kessler paper; illustrated throughout with wood engravings by Edward Gordon Craig, in black and pail gray with occasional use of slate-blue; half-title lettering by Eric Gill. The spine slightly toned, light shelf wear; within, some offsetting from the laid-in tissues to the title and colophon, and a few spots of foxing to the penultimate text leaf, in all a handsome, fresh example.

This is one of the most beautiful books of the inter-war period, both typographically and in terms of the exquisite illustration, which was conceived by Gordon Craig, who had recently designed a set for the play for the Moscow State Theater. The inspiration for the woodcuts were the wooden stage models that Craig had prepared for that production. The marriage between the illustration and Kessler's typography is as near perfect as in any printed book I know. This copy is in the deluxe binding by Otto Dõrfner, the majority of the edition appearing in vellum- or cloth-backed boards

This edition was preceded by the German edition of 1929, but this is of course a typographically distinct production. The Artist and the Book 66; Ransom 253.