The Frogs

Aristophanes.
The Frogs. 
Haarlem, Netherlands: Joh. Enschedé en Zonen for The Limited Editions Club, 1937.
Call Number: (SPL) PA 3877 .R3 1937 
Gift of Loryn Romadka, from the collection of Austin F. Lutter.
Special Collections, Golda Meir Library

This limited edition of 1500 copies includes the translation of William James Hickie with wood-cut engravings by John Austen.

The concept of this book began out of a competition held by The Limited Editions Club. The Club contacted book-illustrators with a list of titles and asked that the artists choose a book to illustrate and present their ideas for illustrations. John Austen, a well-known English illustrator replied he wished to illustrate The Frogs by Aristophanes though it did not appear on the list. The Club agreed, and upon receipt of his designs, immediately awarded a prize to Austen and his drawings.

The Club arranged to print the book at the historic Jhn. Enschedé press in Holland. This press is one of the oldest in the world, having been in operation for over 400 years.

With this edition, The Limited Editions Club did not seek to make an important contribution to Aristophanesian bibliography, but to provide an appropriate vehicle for Austen's humorous artwork. George Macy wrote:

Upon this simple and bold treatment must rest the potential success of this book. For no one can claim for our edition of The Frogs that it will go down into history as an important publication... Yet, while it is not claimed for this printing of The Frogs that it is important, it is not even necessary to claim for it that it will prove satisfying to those collectors who come into possession of it. For it represents a noteworthy wedding of the arts of the book; in it a fine paper and a fine type and fine illustrations and a fine binding are satisfactorily wedded in holy matrimony. It is not often that this can be said even of important books.