Legrand (Edy) - Macao et Cosmage ou, L'Experience du Bonheur.

Edy Legrand. Macao et Cosmage or, L'Experience du Bonheur. Imperial 4to, 34cm, 54pp, Paris: Aux Editions de la Nouvelle Revue Francaise, 1919.

Printed on Lafuma paper, with each page printed in black line to designs by Edy Legrand and subsequently hand-coloured by Jean Saude. Original pictorial covers, just a little chipped at the bottom edge. An unusually bright copy of a remarkable production.

"In 1919, in rather a different vein, Edy Legrand wrote and illustrated 'Macao et Cosmage', for Editions de la Nouvelle Francaise. This was a large square book, printed in black line and stencilled colours, with a handwritten text. It is a gay, boldly drawn colourful book, whose rather mannered drawings are very much of their time. 'Macao et Cosmage' was something quite new in cheap book production and made a lively contrast to the insipid watercolours printed in three- or four-colour halftone or the repellent chromolithography still in use at that time. Nothing like  this had appeared in England or the USA." (John Lewis in 'The Twentieth Century Book')