[Cecil Beaton. Robert Herring]
The first dust jacket design by Cecil Beaton, created when he was 22 and struggling to escape office life. The President’s Hat is a fictional travelogue describing the walking tour of two young men to view the President’s hat in Andorra. It is the first book by his Cambridge friend Billy Williams (writing as Robert Herring). The jacket’s illustration uses some of Beaton’s earliest artistic motifs, including theatrical swags, a glass cloche, and handwritten text.
Robert Herring. With a dust jacket design by Cecil Beaton. Illustrations by Hubert Williams. Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd. London. 1926. First edition. Hardback, octavo; brown paper-covered boards with star pattern, backed with brown cloth and title in gilt, dust jacket with dollar price printed to spine. viii, 222 pages. Frontispiece and numerous text illustrations. English. 200 x 150mm. 0.55kg. . Very good, in good dust jacket; some wear to jacket, light rubbing to edges, forecorners and spine ends, short tear to lower edge of rear panel, a couple of small areas of loss to base of spine and lower edge of rear panel, edges reinforced with tape to verso, small abrasions to surface of front panel, some fading to spine; slight dustiness to top edge.
