1928 Rare First Edition - Old Rhymes for All Times by Cicely Mary Barker

An uncommon and beautifully illustrated first edition of Cicely Mary Barker’s charming anthology of traditional rhymes, complete with all twelve delicate color plates.

Author: Cicely Mary Barker, collector and illustrator.
Title: Old Rhymes for All Times.
Publisher: London and Glasgow: Blackie & Son Limited, no date [1928]. 
Edition: First Edition.
Language: Text in English.
Pages: 64 pages.
Size: 10 x 8 inches.
Binding: Very good original publisher’s beige cloth binding, attractively decorated in red and green to the upper board with a young girl holding branches of holly, with title and author’s name printed above and below. Spine lettered in green. Illustrated endpapers printed in red and green with children, flowers, birds, animals, and other nursery motifs. Hinges fine, with light general wear, minor rubbing and slight bumping to extremities, as shown, under a protective removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good content, firmly bound and generally bright and clean. Some scattered foxing to a number of pages, at times more noticeable in the margins, as shown. The color plates are particularly clean, bright, and well preserved.
Illustrations: Complete with twelve full-page color illustrations by Cicely Mary Barker, including the frontispiece, together with numerous charming black-and-white illustrations, decorative headings, vignettes, and tailpieces throughout the text.

Estimate: USD $225–250.

The book: Old Rhymes for All Times is a delightful collection of traditional nursery rhymes, songs, verses, and poems selected by Cicely Mary Barker for young readers. Alongside familiar anonymous nursery pieces are verses associated with writers such as Robert Herrick, William Shakespeare, William Blake, Robert Louis Stevenson, and others. Barker arranged the collection with the same affection for childhood, nature, folklore, and domestic life that made her Flower Fairies books so enduringly popular.

First published in 1928, this large-format edition is particularly desirable for Barker collectors. Its twelve full-page color illustrations are complemented by an abundance of finely drawn black-and-white vignettes, creating a much more lavishly illustrated production than many of her smaller-format books. Scenes of children, fairies, animals, country life, and nursery interiors display Barker’s characteristic combination of careful observation and gentle fantasy.

The author and illustrator: Cicely Mary Barker (1895–1973) was an English illustrator and author best known for her celebrated Flower Fairies books. Largely self-taught after studying by correspondence and at the Croydon Art Society, she developed a distinctive style combining botanical accuracy with the delicacy and romanticism of the Pre-Raphaelite tradition. Her child models were often drawn from children she knew personally, lending her imaginary figures an unusual naturalism.

Although the Flower Fairies remain her most famous creations, Barker illustrated numerous books of verse, hymns, and children’s literature. Old Rhymes for All Times is among her most substantial early books outside the Flower Fairy series and showcases particularly well her gifts as both an anthologist and an illustrator.