THE FIELD OF CLOVER

1898. Housman, Laurence. [H.M. Brock's copy] Engraved by Clemence Housman. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1898. 6+ pp undated ads. Original apple-green cloth pictorially decorated in dark green and gilt.

First Edition. This was the third of Laurence Housman's four books of original fairy tales; the two earlier ones (same publisher and binding style) were A FARM IN FAIRYLAND (1894) and THE HOUSE OF JOY (1895); the later one (published by John Murray in decorated blue cloth) was THE BLUE MOON (1904). Many of these early stories had been inspired by [his sister] Clemence's peculiar taste for the bizarre, the passionate and the religious... She [author of THE WERE-WOLF] had an "inborn appetite, which she never lost, for heroes and heroines in suffering for the sins of others," he [Laurence] later recalled [Doyle]. Each of the ten chapters (five tales, of which one is divided into six parts) begins with a full-page plate; there are also two plates as frontispiece and title page. The twelve plates (plus initial letter designs) are engraved by Clemence (so indicated on the title page); in fact the book is also dedicated "To My Dear Wood-Engraver." This is a near-fine copy (one crease in the rear-cover cloth), unusually clean. Doyle pp 71-72. Provenance: the front free endpaper bears the signature of "H. M. Brock" (1875-1960), the British illustrator and landscape artist. Henry Matthew was one of four "Brock brother illustrators," the most-famous being C[harles]. E[dmund]., with whom he shared a studio beginning four years after this book was published. H.M. Brock is best-known for his illustrations for Victorian and Edwardian fiction -- including some Dickens novels, plus at least one Sherlock Holmes tale.