Compelling Collections | January 24, 2025 | Alex Johnson

Five Rare Books for Collectors: Fairy Tales, Fables, and Myths

James Cummins

The Lord Fish by Walter De la Mare

Highlights from James Cummins Bookseller's latest catalogue Once Upon a Time including:

The Lord Fish by Walter De la Mare, illustrated by Rex Whistler, London: Faber & Faber, 1933

First edition, No. 15 of 60 copies signed by the author and specially bound in the original dust jacket. Five magical fairy tales from Walter de la Mare, including the title story about the strange adventures of lazy young man who loves, and lives, only to fish, with Rex Whistler's delightful illustrations.

Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1937

Adapted from Grimm's Fairy Tales. First edition in pictorial papercovered boards and fine dust jacket.

Japanese Fairy Tales Series Tokyo: T. Hasegawa

The Boy Who Drew Cats, The Goblin Spider, The Old Woman Who Lost Her Dumpling, Chin Chin Kobakama, and The Fountain of Youth, rendered into English by Lafcadio Hearn. Hand-printed from woodblocks in color on crepe paper, with illustrations by various artists. All likely printed together in 1925.

Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
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James Cummins

Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Japanese Fairy Tales Series
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James Cummins

Japanese Fairy Tales Series

India Proofs to the first three titles of The Fairy Library by George Cruikshank
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James Cummins

India Proofs to the first three titles of The Fairy Library by George Cruikshank

Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce
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James Cummins

Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce

Set of India Proofs to the first three titles of The Fairy Library by George Cruikshank, London: David Bogue, [1853; 1854; and 1855; and 1845

Hop o’ My Thumb, Jack & The Beanstalk, and Cinderella and the Glass Slipper. 18 etched plates on mounted India Paper; plus one other proof (The Triumph of Cupid A Reverie) from Table Talk featuring Cruikshank himself as the central, meditative figure smoking his meerschaum, amidst a phantasmagoria of Cupid’s victims emerging from the pipesmoke.

Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce New York & London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, 1899

First edition, signed by Bierce on the flyleaf. Bierce was a journalist and short story writer, famous for Civil War stories based on his own experience. This collection of fables is, along with his Devil's Dictionary, the most concise collection of his acid wit.