The Complete Book of the Flower Fairies by Cicely Mary Barker
1998 Hardcover
First Edition
When in 1923 Cicely Mary Barker created the first of the Flower Fairy books, "Flower Fairies of the Spring", she could have had no idea of the popularity they would enjoy. This volume brings together Barker's fairy illustrations and poems from the eight original Flower Fairy books.
Cicely Mary Barker's Flower Fairies Books, published in the first half of this century, are known and loved around the world. They were created by a quiet, unassuming and dedicated artist, who was nevertheless remarkably successful, spending her life illustrating many children's books and selling hundreds of watercolours and pastels. Today, almost thirty years after her death, her work continues to offer delights that have stood the test of time.
She was born in 1895 in Croydon, South London, and spent most of her life there. Because of ill-health she was educated at home and largely taught herself to draw and paint, encouraged by a supportive family and assisted by membership of the Croydon Art Society. She was only sixteen when she had her first work accepted for publication as a set of postcards, and from that time she devoted her career to painting.
It was her Flower Fairies books that brought Cicely Mary Barker her greatest popular acclaim. Like the Pre-Raphaelite painters whom she so much admired, she believed in recreating the beauty of nature in art and in drawing from life. Her plants and flowers were observed with complete botanical accuracy and in the fairies themselves she perfectly captured the unselfconscious grace of young children, whom she used to sketch in her sister's school. Her Flower Fairies watercolours have a unique combination of naturalism and fantasy which no imitators have matched.
The Complete Book of the Flower Fairies brings together in one volume all the Flower Fairy illustrations and poems that are currently in print in separate books. It offers a nostalgic glimpse into the Romantic Age, each illustration suggesting that beyond the natural world so truthfully depicted in her paintings, there might co-exist another, usually invisible, world of the fairies.
Publisher : Warne; First Edition (1997)
Language : English
Hardcover : 192 pages
Dimensions : 20.42 x 2.29 x 26.26 cm
Condition:
All good vintage condition, vivid colours, solid paper.
Some signs of use on the cover pages; otherwise clean and in perfect condition.
No missing pages / fully readable.
🔮 A charming gift for Cicely Mary Barker and Fairy enthusiasts.
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