1897 First Edition - A Smile within a Tear and Other Fairy Stories. Illustrated
Author: The Lady Guendolen Ramsden. Illustrated by Bertha Newcombe.
Title: A Smile within a Tear and Other Fairy Stories.
Publisher: London, Hutchinson & Co., 34 Paternoster Row, 1897. First Edition.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 7.5" x 5.5".
Pages: 251 pages.
Binding: Attractive and near fine original publisher’s decorated cloth binding in teal-blue, richly stamped in gilt and copper with an Art Nouveau crescent moon motif and stylized falling figures. Gilt title to spine and front board (hinges fine, overall slightly worn and scuffed - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover. A clean, bright, and beautifully preserved example, with minimal shelf wear.
Content: Very good content (bright, tight and clean, rare light foxing - as shown). The text remains bright and tightly bound.
Illustrations: Illustrated throughout with eight charming full-page plates by Bertha Newcombe, including a striking frontispiece. The illustrations capture both the whimsical and moral elements of Ramsden’s fairy tales.(Complete).
The book: First published in 1897, A Smile within a Tear is a collection of original fairy tales by Lady Guendolen Ramsden, written in the late-Victorian tradition of imaginative moral storytelling. With titles such as Maid or Mouse? and The Fairies’ Dispute, the stories interweave themes of childhood, kindness, hardship, and imagination, echoing both the sentimentality and didactic undercurrents of the fin de siècle. Hutchinson & Co.’s decorative cloth binding, with its flowing Art Nouveau design of a crescent moon and copper-toned figures, makes this edition as much an artistic object as a literary one.
The author: Lady Guendolen Ramsden (1850–1937) was a British aristocrat and writer, known for her interest in children’s literature and moral tales. Though not as widely remembered as contemporaries like Juliana Horatia Ewing or Mrs. Molesworth, her work reflects the Victorian era’s fascination with fairy stories as vehicles for both entertainment and instruction. Her writing blends gentle humor with emotional depth, as the title A Smile within a Tear suggests.
The illustrator: Bertha Newcombe (1857–1947) was a British painter and illustrator associated with the New English Art Club and the suffrage movement. Her style, characterized by expressive line work and a sensitivity to character, lent itself well to children’s book illustration in the late 19th century. In A Smile within a Tear, her drawings enhance Ramsden’s text with both warmth and delicacy, providing visual narratives that capture the moral and emotional tone of each story.