1950 Rare Book - Cicely Mary Barker - FAIRIES OF THE FLOWERS AND TREES - 1st Ed
(description)
Author : Poems and Pictures by Cicely Mary Barker
Title : FAIRIES OF THE FLOWERS AND TREES
Publisher : London and Glasgow: Blackie & Son Limited. - First Edition, circa 1950.
Size : 8 "X 6 "
Pages : 92 pages + 72 plates.
Dust jacket: Very good dust jacket (small chips and tears - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover. Rare dust jacket in any condition!
Binding : Attractive and Very good full cloth binding (hinges fine, overall slightly worn and scuffed).
Content : Very good content (bright, tight and clean, rare foxing- mainly on preliminary pages, 1954 gift note of a previous owner on back of first endpaper).
Illustrations : Profusely illustrated with 72 exquisite color plates.
The book : Rare and Nice First edition with the dust jacket of this exquisite omnibus volume by Cicely Mary Barker. The scarcest of the combined Flower Fairies volumes. `Flower Fairies of the Garden', `Flower Fairies of the Wayside' and `Flower Fairies of the Trees'. One of the great fairy texts, personifying every variety of flower, grass, plant with a fairy child. A rare find with the original dustjacket!
The author : Cicely Mary Barker (June 28, 1895 - February 16, 1973) was the illustrator who created the famous Flower Fairies, in the shape of ethereal smiling children with butterfly wings. As a child she was greatly influenced by the works of the illustrator Kate Greenaway, whom she assiduously copied in her formative years. Her principal influence, however, which she duly credited, was the artwork of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Cicely was also influenced by the huge popular interest in fairies which developed from the Victorian enthusiasm for fairy stories and was epitomised by the immense popularity of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan in the early part of the 20th century. Published in 1923, Flower Fairies of the Spring was well received by a post-industrial, war-weary public who were charmed by her vision of hope and innocence, which seemed to evoke a less aggressively modern world.