The Green Fairy Book. Lang, Andrew (Ed.).

First edition of the third title in the Fairy Books series. Its 42 stories includes the famous tales "Three Little Pigs" and "The Story of the Three Bears". Henry Justice Ford's (1860-1941) artwork for the series "provided a benchmark in fantasy illustration" (Grolier). Though the Fairy Books are credited to Andrew Lang (1844-1912), he acknowledged in the preface to Lilac (1910) that they "have been almost wholly the work of Mrs [Leonora] Lang, who has translated and adapted them from the French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, and other languages". Loosely inserted is the publisher's four-page pamphlet advertising the Fairy Books. It includes two illustrations by Ford: they depict chivalric figures reading Lang's collections of romance, and fairy figures reading from his main fairy series. The pamphlet's text prints a poem by St John Lucas, entitled "The Fairy Books", and the list of titles is annotated by a former owner to mark their holdings. Grolier Children's 100, 51. Octavo. Original green cloth, spine lettered and stamped in gilt with device of a bee abducting Princess Rosanella, front cover with large gilt block depicting the fairy Gorgonzola riding a dragon, black coated endpapers, edges gilt. Frontispiece with tissue guard, 11 engraved plates, further engravings in the text, all by H. J. Ford. Publisher's 2-page ads bound at end. Spine darkened, rubbing to cloth, gilt unaffected and bright, gentle bowing to rear cover, sporadic foxing to leaves. A very good copy.