VAN SANDWYK, Charles (author and illustrator). Fah-nama-nama-nama-lah. [Vancouver, British Columbia] The Savuti Press. 2025. Signed

Large 8vo.; publisher’s burnished antique gold card wrappers over integrated metallic blue boards, hand-sewn in the studio, upper cover exquisitely blocked in colours surrounding an onlaid pictorial label above the onlaid decorative title, wide gold inner flaps also beautifully printed in a feast of colour with an all-over butterfly design; [vi], 3-16 + [iv], on fine Kipling soft mould-made stock; the text decorated with triple-line rules, brackets, and decorative initials in sang de boeuf, with decorated title-page in colours, 4 onlaid pictorial plates mounted on Stardream Old Gold paper from Italy within colour-printed borders, 3 full-page coloured plates, including the double-page centrefold, and another full-page plate in line; additionally two half-page “tickets”, one for the Steamship and another for the Zoo; fine, as new.

First edition, signed by Charles van Sandwyk in ink.  One of only 300 ‘touring copies’ of which only 150 were made available for sale.

A heart-warming, and true, story related from personal memory to the author by his friend Neil Hershfield (1945-2022) and thus dedicated to him.  This volume was 7 years in production and tells of the life-long friendship between a young boy and a regal elephant he originally came across in Ceylon and rediscovered in old age in a Canadian zoo.