1903 Scarce First Edition - The Magic Forest, A Modern Somnambulist Fairy Story
An uncommon and wonderfully illustrated first edition of Stewart Edward White’s woodland fantasy, combining fairy-tale wonder, wilderness adventure, and an especially attractive Arts and Crafts-influenced publisher’s binding.
Author: Stewart Edward White. Illustrated by Joseph M. Gleeson.
Title: The Magic Forest: A Modern Fairy Story.
Publisher: New York: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1903.
Edition: First Edition, with the copyright page stating “Set up, electrotyped, and published October, 1903.”
Language: Text in English.
Pages: 146 pages + publisher’s catalogue.
Size: 7.5 x 5.5 inches.
Binding: Very good original publisher’s green vertically ribbed cloth binding, strikingly decorated in black, gilt, and pale grey-blue. The upper cover features a large pictorial forest panel incorporating a stylized tree and canoe motifs, surrounded by bold geometric rules, with the title and author prominently lettered in gilt. Spine similarly decorated and lettered, with a small woodland vignette and publisher’s imprint at foot. Rear board plain. Light rubbing, minor scuffing, and gentle wear to the spine ends and extremities, as shown. Hinges sound and binding firm. Upper edge gilt. A particularly attractive example of this unusual decorative publisher’s binding, protected in a removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good content, bright, tight and clean overall, with only light age toning and occasional minor spotting, as shown. Attractive pictorial endpapers printed in pale ochre, with an early ownership inscription dated March 7, 1904 to the front endpaper. Title page finely printed in orange and black.
Illustrations: Complete with six full-page color illustrations by Joseph M. Gleeson, together with numerous charming black-and-white illustrations, decorative chapter headings, tailpieces, and other ornaments throughout. The color plates remain particularly fresh and atmospheric.
Estimate: USD $200–300.
The book: The Magic Forest is an unusual early twentieth-century fantasy in which young Jimmy Ferris, a somnambulist, wanders away from a train and awakens in the Canadian wilderness. With no recollection of how he arrived there, the boy interprets the unfamiliar world around him through the language of fairy tales, transforming forests, animals, canoes, and the people he encounters into elements of an enchanted realm.
White blends the traditional structure of a children’s fairy story with his characteristic fascination for wilderness and outdoor life. The result is a curious and appealing meeting of fantasy and North American adventure literature. The six richly colored plates and abundant text illustrations greatly enhance the dreamlike atmosphere, while the elaborate publisher’s cloth makes the first edition especially desirable as an example of turn-of-the-century illustrated book design.
The author: Stewart Edward White (1873–1946) was an American novelist, essayist, and outdoorsman whose prolific career was closely associated with wilderness, travel, and adventure writing. His works frequently drew upon his experiences in the forests and remote landscapes of North America, bringing an unusually vivid sense of place to his fiction.
Although better remembered for such outdoor classics as The Blazed Trail and The Forest, The Magic Forest reveals a more whimsical side of White’s imagination, adapting his knowledge of the natural world to the conventions of childhood fantasy.
The illustrator: Joseph M. Gleeson (1861–1917) was an American illustrator whose work appeared in numerous books and periodicals around the turn of the twentieth century. His illustrations for The Magic Forest combine careful observation of wildlife and landscape with a distinctly storybook sensibility. The six full-page color plates, particularly the nocturnal and woodland scenes, give this edition much of its visual charm.