Description
Good dust jacket, a mylar dust jacket has been added, illustrated with horse and a story teller on the cover, three story teller on the back, black lettering, chipping on corners and spine, shows age discoloration. The Very Good condition binding is black cloth over boards, gilt and green stamping, gilt lettering on cover and spine. Illustrated end papers. First several pages up to title page have stains at upper edge. Illustrations within by Boris Artzybasheff. The binding is tight and pages are clean. The book measures 7.7″ tall x 5.6″ wide.
About the book (from the dust jacket)
‘The Forge in the Forest” is the most romantic of all the books that Padraic Colum has written for young people. What should one tell in a forge but stories of the four elements that go to the making of horseshoes as they go to the making of our world –Fire, Water, Earth, and Art.
Four story-tellers come to get shoes for the wild horse they have caught and tamed; the King himself will make the horseshoes for them, but only on condition that they tell stories of Fire, Water, Earth and Air-two stories of each for each horseshoe he puts on the wild horse.
The legends are old and new: Solomon and the Servitor of the Lord of the Earth; The Seven Sleepers; Phaeton; Old King, Fork-Beard; King Fergus and the Water-Horse; Saint Martin and the Honest Man; Bellerophon. Each is told in a brief, dramatic, forceful way as these brothers would have spoken, to the beat of the King’s hammer. The unusual make-up, from the bright jacket through every detail of heading and initials, was planned and designed by Artzybasheff. His striking use of symbolic pattern in the end papers, humor and freedom of the large drawings, the restraint of the designs that go with the text, will interest artists and anyone who loves good bookmaking. It is a most unusual gift book for people as well as for boys and girls.
