1895 Scarce Book - The Story of Zelinda and the Monster or, Beauty and the Beast
An unusually artistic 1895 interpretation of Beauty and the Beast, retold from an old Italian version by Mary Stuart Wortley, Countess of Lovelace, and illustrated with ten atmospheric photogravures after her own paintings.
Author: LOVELACE, Mary Stuart Wortley, Countess of.
Title: The Story of Zelinda and the Monster or Beauty and the Beast. Re-told after the Old Italian Version and Done into Pictures.
Publisher: London, J. M. Dent & Company; New York, Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1895.
Edition: First Edition.
Language: Text in English.
Pages: 30 pages.
Size: 10" x 7.5".
Binding: Very good original cream cloth over beveled boards, the upper cover beautifully decorated in colours with an orange tree bearing fruit, a gilt crown among its branches, floral ornaments, and lettering; publisher's device to rear board. Binding remains firm and attractive, with general age-toning and light soiling to the pale cloth, together with rubbing and wear at the tips, corners, and spine extremities, as shown. Protected in a removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good. Internally complete, sound, and generally clean, with scattered light foxing and age-toning. Noticeable offset-toning from the original tissue guards occurs opposite the illustrations, entirely consistent with the materials used in the production of the book. All original tissue guards are present. No significant internal defects noted.
Illustrations: Complete with frontispiece and nine additional full-page sepia photogravures after paintings by the Countess of Lovelace, for a total of 10 full-page illustrations, each accompanied by its original tissue guard.
Estimate: USD 350–450.
The book:
One of the more distinctive late-Victorian interpretations of Beauty and the Beast, this handsome volume presents the story as Zelinda and the Monster, retold by Mary Stuart Wortley, Countess of Lovelace, from an old Italian version. In her preface, dated Chelsea, 1895, Lovelace explains that she selected an Italian form of the tale that allowed the Monster to be treated pictorially in a more convincing humanized guise, while remaining close to the traditional narrative.
The book is particularly notable for the unity between text, illustration, typography, and binding. The restrained cream cloth, symbolic orange-tree-and-crown design, patterned endpapers, decorative initials, and ten full-page plates create a refined Arts and Crafts-era object. Contemporary writing on children's book illustration specifically singled out Zelinda and the Monster as a sumptuous treatment of the fairy tale and noted its ten photogravures after paintings by the Countess.
The author:
Mary Caroline Milbanke, née Stuart-Wortley, Countess of Lovelace (1848–1941), was a British writer and artist and the second wife of Ralph Gordon Noel King-Milbanke, 2nd Earl of Lovelace. She belonged to a distinguished literary and artistic circle and pursued her own interests in painting, design, literature, and traditional stories.
Her Zelinda and the Monster is among her most appealing publications, combining literary retelling with her own pictorial interpretation. The classical, almost Pre-Raphaelite character of the illustrations gives this version of Beauty and the Beast an atmosphere quite unlike the later children's-book treatments of the tale and makes the volume especially attractive to collectors of Victorian fairy tales, illustrated books, and decorative bindings.