Customer Reviews

In Fairyland: 2 (A Studio book)

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There are a couple of versions of this book. Let me share some brief history of this book with you. In 1869 artist Richard Doyle published a book consisting of his wonderful pictures of a fairyland and its inhabitants, accompanies by a very short poem by W. Allingham. Then in 1884, the drawings were used in another book, this time accompanies by a much longer poem by Andrew Lang, that really works to flesh out a story. In that edition, five pictures were edited out as not working with the poem it seems. Worse yet, they printed many of the illustrations in black & white. In 1979, a special new edition, combining both of the poems, and restoring all the original art, in color was printed by Derrydale. Since then there have been a couple of reprints of that version, as well as "Princess Nobody", which is the same illustrations and just the Andrew Lang text. All of this gets confusing if you are a collector of children'The King and Queen of the country next to Fairyland long for a child and are finally blessed with a daughter, the Princess Niente. s illustrated books and want to have the right version.
The best edition I have seen is the 1979 edition by Derrydale, the reproduction of the images, strong binding and pictorial boards that match the dustjacket, the colors of ink, and quality of paper and binding are very superior to the other versions in my humble opinion. It is the first edition in that state, and the pulbisher treated it very well.
As for the story, in Fairyland there is a lot of activity, such as the Great Snail Race, or dancing under the mushrooms at night with elves. We get to see the Queen of the Water Fairies, Princess Nobody, the Wicked Dwarf, and Prince Comical. The fairies ride frogs and birds, and have an air carriage pulled by butterflies.The King of the land next to Fairyland. But it is really all about the detailed drawings by Doyle, truly a treasure.