1911 Rare Edition - AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND by George MacDonald

 

Author : George MacDonald
Title : At the Back of the North Wind. With twelve full-page illustrations in colour and seventy-six text illustrations in black-and-white.
Publisher : London, Glasgow and Bombay, Blackie and Son Limited, no date (circa  1911).  A slightly later printing of the first edition printed in 1911.
Language : Text in English.  
Size : 8 " X 6 "
Pages : 391 pages.
Binding : Very good and attractive original decorated cloth covered boards with gold stamped lettering and a pictorial pastedown on front cover (hinges fine, overall  slightly worn and scuffed) . The Art Nouveau binding is typical of Blackie in this period, complete with stylized Glasgow roses.
Dust Jacket: Good dustjacket (chips and tears - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover.
Content : Very good content (bright, tight and clean, offsetting of the dust jacket inner flap on endpapert - as shown, name of a previous owner on first endpaper).
Illustrations : Beautifully illustrated with 12 full page color illustrations by Frank C Pape and seventy six black and white drawings. This edition is the first thus with Pape's color plates keeping Arthur Hughe's illustrations in the text. A wonderful and un-common edition!

Estimate : (USD 250 - USD 350)

The book : Rare and attractive edition of At the Back of the North Wind -- a children's book written by Scottish author George MacDonald. It was serialized in the children's magazine Good Words for the Young beginning in 1868 and was published in book form in 1871. It is a fantasy centered on a boy named Diamond and his adventures with the North Wind. Diamond travels together with the mysterious Lady North Wind through the nights. The book includes the fairy tale Little Daylight, which has been pulled out as an independent work, or separately, added to other collections of his fairy tales.

The author: George MacDonald (10 December 1824 – 18 September 1905) was a Scottish author, poet and Christian minister. He was a pioneering figure in the field of fantasy literature and the mentor of fellow writer Lewis Carroll. His writings have been cited as a major literary influence by many notable authors, including W. H. Auden, J. M. Barrie, Lord Dunsany, Hope Mirrlees, Robert E. Howard, L. Frank Baum, T.H. White, Lloyd Alexander, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Walter de la Mare, E. Nesbit, Peter S. Beagle, Neil Gaiman and Madeleine L'Engle. C. S. Lewis wrote that he regarded MacDonald as his "master": "Picking up a copy of Phantastes one day at a train-station bookstall, I began to read. A few hours later", said Lewis, "I knew that I had crossed a great frontier." G. K. Chesterton cited The Princess and the Goblin as a book that had "made a difference to my whole existence".