The Art of Book Design: The Brown Fairy Book


Andrew Lang. The Brown Fairy Book, Illustrations by H.J. Ford. New York (etc.), Longmans, Green, and Co., 1910.


This week’s fairy book is brown and it’s filled with the wonderful illustrations of H. J. Ford. This book, along with the remainder of the series (which I’ll be posting), all have a few coloured full-page illustrations. There are a few things I’d like to note. One is the presence of nipples on a bare-chested woman in the drawing on page 111. In fact, I find most of the drawings more suggestive. The princess’s dresses are sheerer and nipples can be seen through them. These drawings are reflective of the societal changes that happened during the Edwardian Period. The drawings also include the usual lions, bears, mermaids and ogres, along with a wonderful cock.

I’d also like to note that thanks to a comment by Crip Dyke, I’ve linked the Andrew Lang Fairy Books. The links are at the bottom of the page near the links to the books online source.

Frontispiece, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 15, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 22, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 27, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 29, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 39, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 42, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 55, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 61, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 65, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 73, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 83, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 92, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 95, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 101, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 111, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 119, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 126, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 131, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 135, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 146, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 151, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 155, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 167, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 173, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 176, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 181, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 211, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 240, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 260, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 276, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 279, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 285, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 311, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 323, The Brown Fairy Book

Page 346, The Brown Fairy Book

 

Link to last week’s Fairy Book, The Grey Fairy Book

Link to next week’s The BlueFairy Book

cover photo by: blackcatcaboodle 

Drawings from: The Internet Archive

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