Fairy Books. Fairies have been featured in books for centuries. Ariel, from William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” was an air fairy and has been illustrated many times. Looking at auctions and museums is a valuable source to finding out which book is valuable. You do not want to destroy a valuable book for use in mixed media. Also they are valuable resources for ideas. Many old books are no longer within their copyright, if they ever had a copyright before, so you can safely scan images for digital scraps to use in art work. That way you get to use the images without destroying the book. Below are some antique books which have fairies or other fantasy creatures in them.
DULAC (EDMUND) QUILLER-COUCH (ARTHUR) The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales, NUMBER 373 OF 1000 COPIES SIGNED BY THE ARTIST, 30 tipped-in colour plates, publisher’s 4-page advertisement for Dulac, Rackham and other gift-books loosely inserted, publisher’s morocco gilt, t.e.g., spine faded with hairline tear at upper margin, [1910]–POE (EDGAR ALLAN) The Bells and Other Stories, NUMBER 82 OF 750 COPIES SIGNED BY THE ARTIST, 28 tipped-in colour plates, publisher’s decorative vellum gilt, t.e.g., spines slightly rubbed, new ties, [1912], Hodder & Stoughton–ROSENTHAL (LEONARD) The Kingdom of the Pearl, NUMBER 260 OF 675 COPIES, 10 tipped-in colour plates, occasional light spotting, publisher’s cloth-backed pictorial boards, slightly rubbed, Nisbet, [1920], all illustrated by Dulac, 4to (3)
Sold for £ 2,000 inc. premium at Bonhams in 2017
CRUIKSHANK, George (1792-1878). Fairy Library. A complete set, comprising: Hop o’ my Thumb; The History of Jack and the Bean Stalk; Cinderella and the Glass Slipper; and Puss in Boots. London: David Bogue [vols. 1-3] and Routledge and others [vol. 4], [1853, 1854, 1854, 1864]. 4 volumes, small 4° (173-185 x 138-140mm). Complete with 6 plates in each volume. (Light soiling, the first work with a few short marginal tears, some spotting.) Original blue illustrated wrappers printed in black (the first work rebacked, the last chipped at spine ends, more heavily soiled and spotted than others); together in one red morocco-backed solander-case.
Sold for GBP 812 at Christies in 2012
RACKHAM, ARTHUR The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. . London: Constable & Company, 1909. One of 750 copies, signed by Arthur Rackham, the illustrator. Bound in full tan morocco gilt, signed Sangorski & Sutcliffe, the upper cover with an elaborate pictorial panel of onlay work after one of the plates in the book, matching moire silk endpapers, slipcased. 11 x 9 inches (28 x 23 cm); 325 pp., 40 mounted color plates. Fine.
Sold for $5,625 (includes buyer’s premium) at Doyle New York in 2012
Fergus Hume THE CHRONICLES OF FAERYLAND FANTASTIC TALES FOR OLD AND YOUNG 1893 Decorative Binding Silver Lettering Illustrated King Oberons Library Enchanted Forest Fairy Tales Children Literature Poetry Title: The Chronicles of Faeryland: Fantastic Tales for Old and Young Author: Fergus Hume – Fergusson Wright Hume, known as Fergus Hume, was a prolific English novelist, producing more than 100 novels and short stories. Publisher: J. B. Lippincott Company City: Philadelphia Year: 1893 Binding Style: Hardcover Pagination: 191 pages Width: 7″ Height: 8.5″ Book Details: This antique volume is bound in gray cloth with silver, red, and black lettering, and illustrated fairies on the front board and spine. A frontispiece illustration and many in-text illustrations by M. Dunlop supplement the text. Stories include “King Oberon’s Library” and “The Enchanted Forest”.
Sold for $45 at National Book Auctions in 2018
“The Story of the Princess of the Blue Pavillion: The Youth of Rum Is Entertained in a Garden by a Fairy and her Maidens”, Folio from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Amir Khusrau Dihlavi
Approximately one century after the Persian poet Nizami wrote his Khamsa (Quintet), the Indian poet Amir Khusrau Dihlavi composed a response using Nizami’s structure but varying his stories slightly. This painting comes from the Mughal emperor Akbar’s (r. 1550–1605) copy of Amir Khusrau’s verses. It depicts a story told by a princess to the king Bahram Gur, about a youth and the fairy queen he imagines meeting nightly in a lush garden.
Reference: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Book, “The Fairy Ring”. Four transformation pictures. Published by Nister/Dutton, London/New York, c. 1900.(LC). Made in London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom, Europe, c 1900.
Reference: Museum of Applied Art and Sciences
The Blue Bird, A Fairy Play in Six Acts 1911 Illustrated by F. Cayley Robinson (English, 1862–1927), Author Maurice Maeterlinck (Belgian, 1862–1949), Translator Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (1865–1921), Publisher Dodd, Mead & Company (American, founded in 1876)
(New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1911) 26.1 cm; xv, 211 pp., plus plates; original publisher’s green-, purple-, and gilt-stamped blue cloth (cream-colored phase box).
Reference: Museum of Fine Arts Boston
