The Collected Drawings of Bruce Bairnsfather

The book is in very good condition. The dust cover has some minor wear-and-tear damage. Copyright 1931 In 1930 Bruce Bairnsfather had signed up with The Leigh Bureau of Lectures and Entertainments in New York, to undertake a season on the coast-to-coast lecture circuit. Following a highly successful tour season in 1930-31, and “in response to a demand from those organisations who have engaged him” Bairnsfather’s agent decided to capitalise on the popularity of his latest new speaker by publishing a special volume of cartoons encompassing both his current output in various American magazines, and a selection of the Fragments from France drawings which had first brought him to the public’s attention, back in 1915. The Leigh Bureau decided to produce two versions of their new book—a ‘regular’ or ‘standard’ copy, and a deluxe edition which would appeal to the more serious collector. The standard edition of The Collected Drawings was itself “very special” - finely printed on Warren’s Luster Coated Paper, cloth bound in blue with the title gold-stamped, and presented in a smart, colour dust jacket featuring BB’s most famous cartoon. Priced at $3.00 it is certain to have been very popular with Bairnsfather’s many fans in 1931. The deluxe edition, priced at $10.00 was probably aimed at the slightly more up-market and affluent Bairnsfather enthusiasts of the day. In a letter written in 1932, W. Colston Leigh commented that “as a ‘Collectors item’ it is unsurpassed.” Half leather bound with black leather spine and red/orange boards, and printed on an even more superior weight & quality paper than the ‘standard’ edition, the $10.00 version was limited to only 970 copies, each containing “an original, signed drawing by the artist.”