THE BLUE FAIRY BOOK

1889. Ford, H. J.. [the first Fairy Book] With Numerous Illustrations by H.J. Ford and G.P. Jacomb Hood. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1889. 16 pp ads dated August 1889. Original blue cloth pictorially decorated in gilt, all page edges gilt.

First Edition of the first of the twelve "fairy books" put together by Andrew Lang (and in no small part by his wife Leonora). After BLUE came RED, GREEN, YELLOW, PINK, GREY, VIOLET, CRIMSON, BROWN, ORANGE, OLIVE and (in 1910) LILAC -- each volume in cloth of its own color. Lang had long been interested in fantasy in general and in folk and fairy tales in particular -- the result of his upbringing in (truncated) the Scottish border area. When he began this series, he was going against educators' opinions, who felt that the escapism and violence in such tales would be harmful to young readers; there were very few earlier English collections of fairy tales, but many others followed this series. It is important to note that many fairy tales came from foreign languages, and had to be translated for the FAIRY BOOKs -- constituting the first appearance in the English language for many of them, and exposing many British children to foreign writing for the first time. Since this was the first fairy book, and it was unknown how many there would be (in the Preface to GREEN, Lang predicted that that would be the third and last), a rather tentative edition of 5,000 copies was produced -- vs. as many as 15,000 for some of the others. Also, for the first book Lang selected the most popular fairy tales -- with the result that of the twelve volumes, THE BLUE FAIRY BOOK has the cream of the fairy tale crop -- including "Little Red Riding-Hood," "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood," "Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper," "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp," "Rumpelstiltzkin," "Beauty and the Beast," "The Story of Pretty Goldilocks," "Hansel and Grettel," "Snow-White and Rose-Red," and "The History of Jack the Giant-Killer." Included are eight plates plus numerous illustrations within the text. This copy is in very good-plus condition (minor soil on the rear cover, two gatherings standing slightly proud, a few leaves with minor soil); the cover gilt, while less than brilliant, remains rather bright. In all, a highly-collectible copy of the most sought-after (and most elusive) Fairy Book. Provenance: armorial bookplate of Cecil George Assheton Drummond (1839-1903) of Enderby Hall, Leicester. (Inventory #: 15710)