The Great Sea-Horse and Other Stories FIRST UK EDITION

London: Frederick Warne & Co, 1909. First U.K. Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. Very good. First U.K. Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. A very presentable first UK printing of Isabel Anderson's first book, The Great Sea-Horse and Other Tales, complete in a tissue-guarded frontispiece and 23 color plates from pastel drawings by John Elliott along with charming decorative chapter headings by Frank Downey. Heiress, philanthropist, war nurse, world traveler, patron of the arts, political commentator, and author of nearly 50 books of children's literature, drama, poetry, travelogues, and history, Isabel Anderson (1876–1948), née Isabel Weld Perkins, began her literary career with this whimsical, enchantingly illustrated children's fantasy "mixing the fantastic water fairies with real shells, curious fish, and birds of the ocean, and the land fairies with the flowers and trees," to both amuse young readers and inspire their interest in "the many delights and beauties of nature," as Anderson writes in her preface. Mermaids and river sprites, fairies of snow and ice and fire and event fruit, fearsome ocean giants and trees that teach "Forest School," the merry gnomes of Muir Glacier and mighty horses with manes of golden brown seaweed and webbed feet all await in this unique collection of nature fairy tales, taking inspiration from the American landscape from Muir Glacier in Alaska to the Florida coast, native plants like pumpkins and flowering dogwoods and native birds like the bobwhite, catbird and hummingbird, indigenous creation stories, Charles Kingsley's Water-Babies, classic fairy tales, and more.

8 1/2" X 6 1/2". xii, 251pp. Presents nicely in protective archival jacket. Bound in green cloth over boards, with coral and seaweed decorations stamped in dark green to upper board, lettered in kind, with fantastic sea horse stamped in bright gilt, and spine lettered and decorated in gilt. Mild wear to binding, with rubbing and bumping to extremities and small tears to corners and to head of spine. Top edge gilt. Hint of spine at center of text block. Binding remains quite firm and sound. Decorative endpapers carry forth the coral and seaweed motif from the binding. Previous owner's inscription of Peregrine H. D. Willoughby, Chrsitmas 1916 to front free endpaper. Light foxing and heavy toning to endpapers. Light age-toning to pages throughout, else clean and unmarked. Illustrated in a tissue-guarded frontispiece and 23 color plates from pastel drawings by John Elliott and decorative chapter headings by Frank Downey. Old Bullock's-Wilshire typewritten sales card laid in.