[Rarebooks] Offering: Lang's Violet Fairy book, w/ Glasgow School bookplate

[Michael John Thompson]

THE VIOLET FAIRY BOOK. Edited by Andrew Lang. With Numerous Illustrations 
by H.J. Ford.

London: Longmans, Green and Co. 1901.

First edition. Octavo, original purple cloth heavily decorated in gold on 
spine and front panel, all edges gilt. 398 pp, frontispiece with tissue 
guard, plus seven additional full-page colour plates and numerous black & 
white plates throughout the text, pictorial cover design, all by H.J. Ford. 
Slight wear at edges, spine a bit rubbed at tips, upper front corner a 
touch bumped; the text block is slightly shaken and there are some general 
dust stains throughout , as if the book has been read. Contemporary owner's 
signature on verso of front endpaper " Nettie Wilson".

This copy bears and elaborate and beautiful bookplate by Frances MacDonald 
on the front paste-down, executed for Thomas Wilson. The bookplate is 
firmly in the Glasgow School of Design and bears two elongated figures and 
the saying "He who knows and knows he knows is a wise man - follow him. Ex 
Libris Thomas Wilson", signed "F.E. McD". Frances MacDonald (1873-1921), 
the lesser known sister of Margaret MacDonald, married the artist Herbert 
McNair whom she met through the Glasgow School of Art, her sister married 
Charles Rennie McIntosh. Collectively they became known as the "Glasgow 
Four". Frances' work is not as well known as that of the others, due in 
part to her husband destroying most of her output after her death. The 
bookplate is very pleasing. The book is generally in very good, attractive 
condition, and the cloth is not faded, which is very unusual for this 
volume, one of the scarcest in Lang's Colour Fairy Book series.


http://www.mjtbooks.com/images/books/violetfairy.jpg


$450.00 US

Terms: As usual.


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Michael John Thompson
Member, Antiquarian Booksellers Association of Canada
5275 Jerow Road
Hornby Island, BC
Canada V0R 1Z0
250-335-1182

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