[Maclaren, Archibald]

[Burne-Jones, Edward- His First Book Illustration- Deluxe Cover] The Fairy Family: a series of ballads & metrical tales illustrating the fairy mythology of Europe

London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1857.

First Edition. 8vo, 7 x 5 inches, 284pp, 4 pp. ads. Original publisher's "Deluxe" edition bound un full blue textured cloth over beveled boards with superb all-over elaborately blind-stamped and gilt-tooled patterning, with a dense all-over gilt arabesque lattice of scrolling foliage and interlaced tendrils radiating from a central medallion, the ornamental framework built from repeated curved fillets, small rosette tools, and diapered background patterning that creates a richly textured, tapestry-like surface across the entire cloth. EDWARD BURNE-JONES FIRST BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS. This "deluxe, gilt edition" represents the most elaborate and visually ambitious state we have seen, or can find documented, hence the only known copy, to our knowledge. This title was first published by Longman, in 1857, and then later by Macmillan in 1874 with brown pictorial covers. Our copy was likely intended as the superior ìgiftî or deluxe issue of the book,and the combination of a distinct, squarer format and the most elaborate gilt binding strongly suggests a superior presentation or gift issue produced concurrently with the trade bindings, of which we have seen lesser variants (green, brown and red embossed cloth, with no gilt design on cover, slightly larger format, and varying gilt designs on spine. Burne-Jones contributed dozens of illustrations for this book, but only two were accepted and used in the publication: frontispiece and corresponding illustrated title page, and a vignette at the back. TEG. A near fine copy with bumped corners, slight uniform age-dimming of gilt. Both hinges, surprising in tact, given the thickness of the book. Laid in is a printed ownership/presentation card of Miss Hurlburt, with autograph notation: "With love and a Merry Christmas from Annie." A most scarce and desirable Pre-Raphaelite entity.

Price: $2,250.00   Item #7044