A Potter's Book by Leach, Bernard; introductions by Soyetsu Yanagi & Michael Cardew - 1940

London: Faber & Faber, 1940. Scarce first edition (first printing) of, arguably, the book most influential on English & American craft pottery of the twentieth century, on substantially thicker paper than immediate post-war printings. Leach, born in Hong Kong, spent the first three years of his life in Japan. Later, after attending the London School of Art where he learned etching under Frank Brangwyn, he was inspired by reading Lafcadio Hearn's books to return to Japan in 1909 to teach etching. There, he joined a group intent on introducing Western art to Japan, giving popular lectures & demonstrations. Around 1911, he began to study raku & traditional Japanese pottery under the sixth Kenzan, working in the tradition of Ogata Kenzan; after mastering his craft, he returned to England in 1920 to teach pottery there, associated with the artist's colony in St. Ives, where he operated a kiln & workshop in collaboration with Hamada Shoji, later a 'Living National Treasure' in Japan. This book delineates his ideal combination of design, craft, art, & philosophy, and the use of simple, traditional materials, which influenced generations of potters & arrtists in England, America, Canada, New Zealand, India, & elsewhere, and helped define the modern studio pottery movement. Scarce first edition - the book was not reprinted until 1945, after the war, and like many art pottery books, often received heavy use by working potters. Hardcover in tattered jacket as pictured. Light wear to book, some tanning to the covers where jacket chunks are missing; price-clipped jacket rubbed, worn, torn, chipped, creased, missing about two inches from the lower spine; light tanning to a few early pages probably from newspaper clippings once laid in. Text clean; xxvii, blank, 293 pages; index, figures, b/w plates all present as called for. . First Edition. Hard Cover. Good/Fair. Octavo.