Platero y yo

1914. "A PROSE-POEM AND A MASTERPIECE" JIMÉNEZ, Juan Ramon. Platero y yo, elegia andaluza... [3]-142 pp. (plus advertisement leaf). Illustrated throughout in colour by Fernando Marco. 8vo., 169 x 100 mm, bound in publisher's tan cloth covered stamped boards, in a new purple cloth folding box. Madrid: Ediciones de "La Lectura," 1914. First Edition of Jimenez's most famous book, beautifully illustrated by Fernando Marco. Published by a small Spanish press during World War I (on 12 December 1914) it has become, for obvious reasons, very rare. This work was chosen as one of the "Books of the Century" by the New York Public Library. The compilers of the exhibition catalogue pronounce: "This book graces childhood homes in Spanish-speaking households throughout the world. A prose-poem and a masterpiece, it was an early success of Juan Ramon Jimenez, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1956. The book chronicles the wanderings over a single year of Platero, a small, hairy donkey 'with a little gay trot like laughter,' and the beast's contemplative master. The pair travel through the stark and fabled countryside of the province of Andalusia in southern Spain, encountering its peasants, gypsies, and sweet, vivacious children. An exquisite book of great rarity. Hinges repaired, internally fine and clean, with a neat official stamp at the foot of the title-page. Fundacion Juan March, The Avant-Garde Applied 1890-1950, No. 354. NYPL, Books of the Century, 192. Palau 124402.