Description
Very Good+ illustrated dust jacket. A Mylar dust jacket has been added. The Very Good+ binding is green cloth over boards with embossed stars. Color illustrations throughout by Kay Nielsen. Pages are clean and the binding is tight, illustrated endpapers.
About the book: (from the dust jacket)
The fairy tales collected and published in the early nineteenth century by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in Germany-have fascinated generations of readers. They have been translated into many languages and have been published in many editions, some of them handsomely illustrated. One of the most beautiful of these appeared in France in 1929 under the title Fleur-de-Neige et d’autres contes de Grimm, with full-page color plates of superb watercolors by the Danish artist Kay Nielsen.
The illustrations in this book are reproduced directly from those in that lavish numbered edition published in Paris. The stories have been selected and adapted from an edition, also illustrated with Nielsen’s exquisite color plates, that was published in England as Hansel and Gretel, Stories from the Brothers Grimm. The beautiful chapter-head decorations and ornamental letters done in Nielsen’s style by Pierre Courtois for the French edition have also been included. The copy of the original edition from which this one has been reproduced is now in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The publication of this present edition makes it possible for a new generation of readers to enjoy a rediscovered masterpiece from the golden age of book illustration.
About the illustrator: (From the dust jacket)
KAY NIELSEN was born in Copenhagen in 1886, the son of Martinus Nielsen, who later became the Director of the Royal Danish Theater, and the actress Oda Larssen. In 1904, already under the influence of the art-deco movement, Kay Nielsen went to Paris to study at the Académie Julienne. In 1912 his first exhibition, of a series of black-and-white illustrations for a proposed publication called The Book of Death, was held at the Dowdeswell Galleries in London. The drawings attracted the attention of the London publishers Hodder and Stoughton, and his career as an illustrator of fairy tales was launched. The first, in 1913, was In Powder and Crinoline, and this was quickly followed by East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North, in 1914. The next, a series of illustrations for Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales, did not appear until 1924; Nielsen meanwhile had become engaged in designing for the Danish State Theater. The last was Red Magic: a Collection of the World’s Best Fairy Tales from All Countries, edited by Romer Wilson and published in 1930 His later years were spent in Hollywood, where he became a designer of motion picture sets, a muralist, and an actor in walk-on parts.
for children.
About the author: (From the dust jacket)
Bryan Holme is the author, editor, and designer of many art books and books for children.
