The Golden Hind: A Quarterly Magazine of Art and Literature Vol. 1, No. 1 — October 1922. Chapman & Hall, London.

Description

The first number of one of the great lost treasures of 1920s British art publishing — a strikingly ambitious quarterly founded and co-edited by playwright Clifford Bax and artist-occultist Austin Osman Spare. Conceived as a showcase for the finest illustrative talent of the day, The Golden Hind ran for only eight numbers (1922–1924) before folding, its large-folio format and lavish reproduction quality making it one of the most luxurious periodicals of its era.

This inaugural issue is presented in the original decorative pictorial wrappers, priced 6/- nett, and includes work by Spare himself alongside contributions from a remarkable circle of contemporary artists and writers — among them John Austen, John Nash, Glyn Philpot, Robert Gibbings, Jack B. Yeats, Alan Odle, and — in later numbers — even a young Evelyn Waugh. This copy includes Spare’s atmospheric lithograph “The New Eden,” alongside further illustration and literary content including Louis N. Parker’s essay “Wagner Reconsidered.”

A scarce survival of Spare’s editorial period and a genuine artefact of the interwar British art-literary scene — of particular interest to collectors of Spare, Golden Age illustration, and early 20th-century esoteric and artistic circles.