1893 The Green Fairy Book Edited by Andrew Lang / Longmans Green & Co. London / Beautiful Vintage Book of Fairy Tales / Richly Illustrated

A beautiful collection of fairy tales being a vintage book in the highly sought-after coloured fairy books series by Andrew Lang. These are becoming increasingly hard to get hold of. The Green Fairy Book was originally published in 1892, this copy is from just a year later in 1893 by Longmans, Green and Co., London. With the striking illustration of a fairy riding a dragon on the front. Richly illustrated with many black and white plates, plus numerous illustrations in the text by HJ Ford. In good condition - with foxing to the pages being the main condition point to note.

Lang had grown up with a love of myths and fables and towards the end of the 1880s he began to collect and publish some of his favourite tales. The Blue Fairy Book, was the result, published in 1889 it met with great critical acclaim. The Red Fairy book appeared in Christmas of the following year. Lang went on to produce a series of twelve collections of fairy tales, published between 1889 and 1910. Each volume is distinguished by its own colour. In all, 437 tales from a broad range of cultures and countries are presented. The Green Fairy Book includes stories in particular from Spain and China.

Inside the book opens with an inked inscription to the front free endpaper from 1893, but has no other writing or markings of previous ownership. As mentioned above there is spotting throughout the text, fairly heavy to some pages (see photos), but none at all to others. All the beautiful illustrated plates are present as called for. The frontispiece illustration still has the original tissue guard. This has tanned and has a couple of slight creases. Has a mildly cracked hinge at the front, but the binding remains good and strong. All edges are shiny gilt.

The green cloth covered boards have the ornate gilt decoration to the front and spine. In top order. Has some slight rubbing to the corners. With a few tiny splits to the cloth on the spine ends. Has just a couple of small light marks to the back board otherwise the front and spine are excellent, being un-faded and with shiny bright gilt. A very smart, tight and square book.

Your antique copy of The Green Fairy Book by Andrew Lang will be wrapped with care in tissue and ribbon* and sent well packaged. I am always happy to include a gift card with a message.

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H 19 cm x W 13.5 cm, 366 pages, 0.61 kg. I dispatch worldwide daily from the UK. (There are just a very few countries which I am unable to ship to).

* If you would prefer for your book not to be decoratively wrapped but sent simply in the full protective packaging, please add a note to the order.

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