Fairy Tales and Legends
By Hans Christian Andersen
 
First Whistler edition, first impression, signed by the illustrator Rex Whistler on the half-title. One of 200 deluxe copies and one of Whistler's most striking book designs, Fairy Tales and Legends was published by Cobden-Sanderson in 1935 and bound by the Leighton-Straker Bookbinding Co. Ltd. The lavish gilt-blocked cloth binding and green patterned endpapers are both by Whistler, who also supplied the suite of exquisite full-page and vignette illustrations throughout the text.

Octavo. Original cream cloth elaborately blocked in gilt with an all-over design by Rex Whistler, green patterned endpapers. All edges gilt.

A very good copy, the binding still bright, save for some toning to spin, the gilt still vivid. Some dustiness to top edge. Hinge cracked at title, but all holding firm. Endpapers clean, save for a neat ownership name to the front free endpaper. The contents are clean throughout.

The book exemplifies Whistler's distinctive neo-Rococo style - light, romantic, and intricately detailed - a beautiful twentieth-century illustrated edition of Andersen's fairy tales.