LANG, Andrew; Charles VAN SANDWYK [Illus.]; Joan AIKEN [Intro.]
The Blue Fairy Book
London: The Folio Society, 2003
Large 4to. (19 x 25cm approx); publisher’s blue boards, elaborately decorated with the design of ‘The Beast’ from Beauty and the Beast in red, white and gold to the upper board; spine fully decorated in similar colours with title labels and fairy motifs; upper edge stained blue; decorative navy endpapers featuring mythical creatures in gold; pp. [vi], v-xvii, [iii]; with 17 full-page plates in vibrant colour by Van Sandwyk, as well as numerous other in-text illustrations in line throughout; a beautiful, fine copy, housed in the original matching slipcase which has one small dent to foot and a couple of minor scuff marks.
First edition thus of this wonderful compendium of fairy stories, first published in 1889 and here appearing with the Van Sandwyk illustrations and an introduction by Joan Aiken. This copy beautifully signed and doodled by the illustrator with a sketch of a mouse holding a lantern to the ffep.
Andrew Lang’s fairy books were first published in a series of 12 between 1889 and 1913. A collaboration between the novelist and his wife, Leonora Blanche Alleyn (who provided the majority of the text but is often not credited at all), the books contained, in total, almost 800 individual stories, and were in some instances the first appearances of the tales in English. Lang was inspired to write the stories after hearing many in his youth, growing up along the Anglo-Scottish border in Selkirk, and many of the books incorporate tales from Scotland, as well as from Norse mythology, Grimm, the Arabian Nights and many others.
This, ‘The Blue Fairy Book’ was the first in the series to be produced, and includes many of the stories we know and love today, including ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood’, ‘Cinderella’, ‘Aladdin’, ‘Rumpelstiltzkin’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘Puss in Boots’. In a similar vein, this edition was the first in the Folio’s list of Lang’s publications, and includes the wonderful illustrations by Charles van Sandwyk, with whom the press already had a history with his extensive contributions to their ‘Alice in Wonderland’. As ever, Charles’s illustrations transport the reader of these tales, whether child or adult, to a different time and place: wizened elves reading to birds and fairies in tree branches, kings and queens and even a genie, inspired by his lifelong friend Sikuri Murray.
A fabulous publication which would make a wonderful gift - scarce indeed signed and doodled thus.
LANG, Andrew; Charles VAN SANDWYK [Illus.]; Joan AIKEN [Intro.]
The Blue Fairy Book
London: The Folio Society, 2003
Large 4to. (19 x 25cm approx); publisher’s blue boards, elaborately decorated with the design of ‘The Beast’ from Beauty and the Beast in red, white and gold to the upper board; spine fully decorated in similar colours with title labels and fairy motifs; upper edge stained blue; decorative navy endpapers featuring mythical creatures in gold; pp. [vi], v-xvii, [iii]; with 17 full-page plates in vibrant colour by Van Sandwyk, as well as numerous other in-text illustrations in line throughout; a beautiful, fine copy, housed in the original matching slipcase which has one small dent to foot and a couple of minor scuff marks.
First edition thus of this wonderful compendium of fairy stories, first published in 1889 and here appearing with the Van Sandwyk illustrations and an introduction by Joan Aiken. This copy beautifully signed and doodled by the illustrator with a sketch of a mouse holding a lantern to the ffep.
Andrew Lang’s fairy books were first published in a series of 12 between 1889 and 1913. A collaboration between the novelist and his wife, Leonora Blanche Alleyn (who provided the majority of the text but is often not credited at all), the books contained, in total, almost 800 individual stories, and were in some instances the first appearances of the tales in English. Lang was inspired to write the stories after hearing many in his youth, growing up along the Anglo-Scottish border in Selkirk, and many of the books incorporate tales from Scotland, as well as from Norse mythology, Grimm, the Arabian Nights and many others.
This, ‘The Blue Fairy Book’ was the first in the series to be produced, and includes many of the stories we know and love today, including ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood’, ‘Cinderella’, ‘Aladdin’, ‘Rumpelstiltzkin’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘Puss in Boots’. In a similar vein, this edition was the first in the Folio’s list of Lang’s publications, and includes the wonderful illustrations by Charles van Sandwyk, with whom the press already had a history with his extensive contributions to their ‘Alice in Wonderland’. As ever, Charles’s illustrations transport the reader of these tales, whether child or adult, to a different time and place: wizened elves reading to birds and fairies in tree branches, kings and queens and even a genie, inspired by his lifelong friend Sikuri Murray.
A fabulous publication which would make a wonderful gift - scarce indeed signed and doodled thus.
