Chubb, Ralph N. The Heavenly Cupid or The True Paradise of Loves

Fair Oak, near Kingslcere, Hants.: Published by the Author, 1932-1933. First and only edition, #9/43 numbered copies, signed and dated by Chubb beneath frontispiece ("R.N. Chubb. 1933"). 4to. 94 leaves. Designed, illustrated, composed, and text printed in script by Chubb. Completely printed in lithography, with lithographic text, frontispiece, vignette on title-page, and nearly 100 in-text and full-page plates by Chubb. Original three-quarter green niger over green corduroy-covered boards, spine lettered in gilt, niger unevenly browned, rubbing to extremities and joints; all edges untrimmed; ownership signature on front paste-down. Reid A10

Scarce first edition of Ralph Nicholas Chubb's most lavishly self-published work, completely printed in lithography, and one of only 43 copies produced.

Chubb (1892-1960) was an English poet, printer and artist, heavily influenced by William Blake and the Romantics, and who devised a highly personal and sexually revolutionary mythology. He privately produced 17 works entirely by his own hand in very small print runs, working quietly first from Curridge in Berkshire, and then from Kingsclere, in Hampshire. Part of Chubb's mythology was being the prophet and herald of the saving of England by a boy god. This eternal Boy-principle is announced as "The Third Dispensation" in The Heavenly Cupid, as an aside to the chapter entitled '"Supernature: The Phoenix is Born Again": "[Man is the eternal only-begotten son of God his Father & Nature his Mother, who is the emanation of God. Both are all love for him. But he is rebellious because he sunders his two parents in his mind instead of uniting them in his heart. The reconciliation of the child with his parents & of the parents together by the child is foreshadow'd in the following prophecy of a Third Dispensation that is of the Holy Spirit. Out of the suffering & travail of the nations, out of the wars & rumours of wars, this heavenly child emerges in Eternity. It has been my happy privilege to see his star in the East, & it is my heavenly commission to herald his coming on the earth.]" Some viewed Chubb's work merely as homo-erotic pederasty and some of his books were destroyed. Despite this he continued self-publishing his work, developing his personal philosophy and worship of the aesthetic of the youthful male form: "the last act of creation in the Old Testament is the woman, Eve. But the final crowning act of creation in the new testament is the Divine Boy".

Includes an original lithographed prospectus for the work laid in--"Of Extreme Rarity".

This lot is located in Philadelphia.

Provenance

From the collection of Justin G. Schiller

Chubb, Ralph N. The Heavenly Cupid or The True Paradise of Loves