RACKHAM, Arthur, illustrator; GOSSE, Edmund, introduction

Allies’ Fairy Book, The

London: William Heinemann, 1916. Item #06472

Some of Rackham's Finest Illustrations

[RACKHAM, Arthur, illustrator]. The Allies’ Fairy Book. With an introduction by Edmund Gosse C.B. and illustrations by Arthur Rackham. London: William Heinemann, [1916].

First trade edition. Small quarto (7 3/4 x 5 3/4 inches; 197 x 146 mm.). xxii, 121, [1] pp. Twelve color plates with descriptive tissue guards, and twenty-four drawings in black and white.

Rebound ca. 1916 in three-quarter green morocco over green marbled boards ruled in gilt, spine with five raised bands, decoratively stamped in gilt and lettered in gilt in compartments. a fine and attractive copy.

"His book for 1916, The Allies' Fairy Book, published by Heinemann as a contribution to the mood of patriotism and cooperation between the Allies, is likewise composed of images that thrill and inspire, but do not terrify. Where in Grimm, Rackham happily includes illustrations of people battering each other to death or hanging by the hair and caught in brambles alive or half dead, this kind of image is not dwelt upon in The Allies' Fairy Book... even though some of the stories are as red in tooth and claw as any of their type and certainly would have allowed a violent interpretation. Reports coming back from the Front, eye-witness accounts of devastation, violation and butchery, were quite enough to suggest to Rackham and his publishers that at this time the Allies could be spared violent images with their family reading at home." (Hamilton, Arthur Rackham. p. 109).

The stories as per the contents leaf include:
English: Jack the Giant-Killer
Scottish: The Battle of the Birds
Welsh: Lludd and Llevelys
Irish: Guleesh
French: The Sleeping Beauty
Italian: Cesarino and The Dragon
Portuguese: What Came of Picking Flowers
Japanese: The Adventures of Little Peachling, The Fox's Wedding and The Tongue-cut Sparrow
Russian: Frost
Serbian: The Golden Apple-tree and The Nine Pea Hens
Belgium: The Last Adventure of Thyl Ulenspiegel

Latimore and Haskell, pp. 45-46. Riall, p. 128.

Price: $650.00