1910 Das Rheingold & die Walkure

Description

Colour Plates, First Edition, Illustrated, Leather Binding, Publishers' Original Binding

The first German Rakcham edition. In the original German, published concurrently with the U.K. Rackham edition.

Illustrated with a tipped-in colour frontispiece, and thirty-three tipped-in colour plates. Collated, complete.

The first two of Richard Wagner's four epic music dramas, the series being titled 'Der Ring des Nibelungen', or 'The Ring of the Nibelung', or simply the 'Ring Cycle'.

These dramas are loosely based on characters from Norse mythology and the Nibelungenlied, revolving around a magical ring, that grants the wearer the power to rule the world. It is said that the ring was forged by the Nibelung dwarf Alberich from gold that he stole from the River Rhine's maidens.

Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Rackham was a book illustrator who illustrated editions of 'The Ingoldsby Legends', 'The Wind in the Willows', 'Grimm's Fairy Tales', and 'Gulliver's Travels', as well as contributing frequently to periodicals. He is considered to be one of the leaders of the 'Golden Age' of book illustrations.