Othello

1939

Special Collections PR2829 A2 F3 1939. Reproduced by permission of the Robert Gibbings Estate and the Heather Chalcroft Literary Agency

New York: Limited Editions Club

Gibbings began working in the Department of Fine Arts at Reading University in early 1936. In 1937 he was made ‘full-time Lecturer in Typography and Book Production’ and worked for three days a week while still working on his own publications and commissions. At the end of 1936, George Macy, head of the Limited Editions Club of New York, asked Gibbings to produce engravings for an upcoming edition of Shakespeare’s works. Gibbings chose Othello as he was drawn to the ‘contrast of dark and light skins’. When the engravings were completed, Macy liked this frontispiece but felt the others were a bit ‘wooden’, no pun intended