HARWERTH, Willi. CLEVERDON, Douglas. ANDERSEN, Hans. ~ The Red Shoes.
15 hand coloured wood engravings by Willi Harwerth. One of 460 copies, this no.331. Printed in Rudolf Koch’s Grosse-Antiqua type by Wilh. Gerstung. 8vo., original paper covered boards, the upper one with a hand-coloured vignette by Hawerth, black letteregin to spine, fore and lower edges untrimmed. Slight offset from the boards to the ffeps, boards slightly toned.
One of Douglas Cleverdon’s very first publications, produced the year before his great book of Gill Engravings. The Red Shoes was beautifully produced in Offenbach-am-Main, the combination of Harwerth’s charming hand-coloured engravings and Koch’s type face being particularly pleasing. The book tells the tale of the girl who loved red shoes and who loved them above all other things so that they were bewitched by the devil and she was made to dance by day and by night until she had her feet cut off to stop the dancing. She repented her idolatory of the red shoes and give herself to god and so entered the kingdom of heaven where “there was no one there to ask about the Red Shoes”.