1894 Rare First Edition - A Farm in Fairyland by Laurence Housman, Illustrated
An exceptionally charming late-Victorian fairy book, entirely written, illustrated and designed by Laurence Housman, with some of his finest early Art Nouveau work.
Author: Laurence Housman. Written and illustrated by Laurence Housman.
Title: A Farm in Fairyland.
Publisher: New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1894. First American Edition.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 7.5" x 5".
Pages: 160 pages.
Binding: Very good original tan pictorial cloth binding, with an elaborate Art Nouveau illustration in dark blue to the front board, gilt lettering to the spine and the publisher’s device at the foot. Upper edge gilt. Light general wear and age toning to the cloth, with some fading to the spine, as shown. The binding remains firm and attractive. Protected in a removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good content. Pages are clean and well preserved, with light age toning and occasional minor foxing or signs of age. No significant defects noted.
Illustrations: Complete with the 13 beautiful full-page Art Nouveau illustrations, together with the highly decorative pictorial title page and the striking cover design, all by Laurence Housman.
Estimate: USD $550–600.
The book: A Farm in Fairyland is a delightful collection of twelve original fairy tales by Laurence Housman, including “Rocking-Horse Land,” “Japonel,” “Gammelyn, the Dressmaker,” “The Wooing of the Maze,” “The Rooted Lover,” “The Horse with the Hump,” “Hidden Ends,” “The Parlous Tree,” “Knoonie in the Sleeping Palace,” “The Green Bird,” “The Man Who Killed the Cuckoo,” and “The Shadow-Weavers.”
Published in 1894, the book belongs to the remarkable flowering of illustrated fairy literature at the end of the Victorian period. Housman conceived the volume as a unified artistic object, combining his stories with his own illustrations, decorative lettering, ornamental borders, pictorial title page and binding design.
The result is particularly beautiful. His full-page black-and-white illustrations are filled with enchanted landscapes, mysterious figures, fantastic creatures and richly patterned vegetation. The extraordinary pictorial title-page spread, surrounded by an elaborate network of interlacing foliage and fantastic forms, is especially representative of the emerging Art Nouveau aesthetic.
The original cloth binding is itself an important part of the design, its elegant female figure, stylized trees and landscape continuing the visual language found throughout the book.
A particularly attractive example of late nineteenth-century fairy-book illustration and an early showcase for Laurence Housman’s distinctive decorative imagination.
The author: Laurence Housman (1865–1959) was an English writer, playwright, poet, illustrator and political activist. His literary work ranged from fairy tales and fantasy to drama, poetry and historical writing, but his books of the 1890s occupy a particularly important place in the history of British illustration.
A Farm in Fairyland is among the works in which Housman’s talents as both writer and artist are most completely united. Rather than illustrating another author’s text, he was able to create the stories and their visual world together, giving the book an unusual degree of coherence and personality.
The illustrator: Laurence Housman was one of the distinctive figures of the great period of black-and-white book illustration at the end of the nineteenth century. His work combines medieval and Pre-Raphaelite influences with the sinuous line, stylized natural forms and dense ornament associated with the emerging Art Nouveau movement.
His illustrations are immediately recognizable for their intricate pen work, elaborate foliage, elongated figures and often slightly mysterious fairy-tale atmosphere. In A Farm in Fairyland, Housman extended his artistic involvement well beyond the full-page illustrations, designing the title page, decorative elements and original pictorial binding as part of a remarkably unified whole.