Lewis (Wilmarth), 1895-1979

(22 cm), xix (1), 253, (3), xiii pp., 24 plates. Publisher’s quarter-cloth, pictorial dust jacket. - First edition, designed by William Addison Dwiggins (1880-1956). Fascinating account of Lewis’ formation of his collection of 18th-century British prints, drawings, books, paintings and works of art, focusing particularly on Horace Walpole and his world. “It is a story which will entertain and instruct many others besides collectors and eighteenth-century specialists” (John Carter, from his review in The Times Literary Supplement, 9 May 1952, p.320). ¶ Dust jacket worn across head and foot of the spine; price clipped. Exlibris of John Thomas Lee (designed in 1921 by Sidney Lawton Smith; cf. C.E. Goodspeed & Co., Sidney Lawton Smith: designer, etcher, engraver: with extracts from his diary and a check-list of his bookplates, Boston 1931, no. 133). Good copy.