The Lilac Fairy Book

5C edited by Andrew Lang. Illustrations by Henry Ford. Great Britain: Longmans, Green and Co. December, 1941.

Notes

The Lilac Fairy Book, compiled by Andrew Lang and first published in 1910, is one volume in his famous Fairy Booksseries, which brought together fairy tales and folklore from around the world. This particular volume includes 33 stories from countries such as Ireland, Russia, Japan, and Greece, each filled with magical creatures, heroic quests, and timeless moral lessons. Lang's collections were groundbreaking in making global folklore accessible to English-speaking readers, and The Lilac Fairy Book continues that tradition with rich, diverse tales ranging from romantic legends to eerie adventures.

Andrew Lang was a Scottish poet, novelist, and literary critic born in 1844. Though he was a scholar with wide-ranging interests—from anthropology to classical literature—he is best remembered for his Fairy Books. While Lang did not write most of the stories himself, he edited and adapted them with the help of his wife, Nora Lang, and other collaborators. His goal was to preserve traditional tales while making them appealing and understandable for children and general readers. Lang’s work played a crucial role in popularizing folklore and inspired generations of fantasy writers, helping to keep the enchantment of folk tales alive in modern literature.

Description

Purple embossed upper board with gilt lettering and gilt embossed design on the spine. Original dust jacket. General foxing to the dust jacket with some chipping along the edges as well as the upper and lower spine. Bumping to upper and lower spine. Mix of colored and black and white illustrations throughout. Minimal foxing. Fine condition overall.