1892 Scarce First Edition - Fairy Tales of a Parrot, Adapted from the Persian
Author: A. Condie Stephen, C.B., C.M.G. Illustrated by Tristram Ellis.
Title: Fairy Tales of a Parrot. Adapted from the Persian.
Publisher: London: Ernest Nister, 24 St. Bride Street; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1892. First Edition. Printed in Bavaria.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 10 x 8 inches.
Pages: Unpaginated.
Binding: Good original publisher’s binding in cream paper-covered boards with decorative brown-tan cloth spine. Front board illustrated with an expressive parrot in flight, with gilt titling and Persian script (hinges fine, overall worn, soiled and scuffed - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover. Still a good and unusually well-preserved example—these Nister pictorial bindings are typically found heavily worn.
Content: Good content (tight, some light foxing and toning - as shown). Decorative patterned endpapers original and intact. A strong, complete example of a fragile production.
Illustrations: Complete with 6 exquisite chromolithograph plates by Tristram Ellis, including the colourful frontispiece, plus numerous black-and-white illustrations within the text. Ellis’s work—detailed, atmospheric, and richly steeped in Orientalist visual tradition—is printed here with the fine chromolithographic precision characteristic of Ernest Nister’s Bavarian atelier.
Estimate: (USD 250–300).
The book: A scarce 1892 first edition of Fairy Tales of a Parrot, one of Ernest Nister’s most visually compelling Orientalist picture books. Adapted from the Persian Tutinama, the stories recount intrigue, moral lessons, and romantic adventures involving Princess Feerooze, Prince Meemoon, the Sultan, and the clever Parrot whose wit repeatedly saves them from danger.
Printed in Bavaria—home of Nister’s finest colour work—this edition combines elegant typography with vibrant colour plates, offering a sophisticated children’s book that appeals equally to adult readers with an interest in Eastern storytelling, Victorian Orientalism, or chromolithographic art.
The fragile nature of Nister’s paper-covered boards means that surviving first editions in good binding and good internal condition are genuinely uncommon. Most examples encountered are heavily soiled, shaken, or lacking plates. This copy, complete and structurally sound, is significantly above average and increasingly difficult to obtain in collectible form.
The author: A. Condie Stephen (1846–1916), a British colonial civil servant and scholar, adapted the tales from Persian sources, preserving the moral and allegorical nature of the original medieval narratives while making them accessible to Victorian readers. His refined storytelling, combined with a respect for the source tradition, made this one of the most elegant English retellings of the Tutinama in the late 19th century.
The illustrator: Tristram Ellis (1844–1922) was a British artist renowned for his Orientalist watercolours and line drawings, informed by extensive travels in the Middle East. His work here is lively, expressive, and architecturally precise—features that give the illustrations an authenticity rarely seen in Western depictions of Persian tales.
Ellis’s plates for this 1892 first edition are among his most charming book illustrations, and their survival in good condition significantly enhances this copy’s desirability.