The Art of Book Design: Korean Fairy Tales

William Elliot Griffis. Korean Fairy Tales. New York, Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, 1922.

It’s Fairy Tale Saturday and this week our book tells tales from the country of Korea. The author, William Griffis, lived and taught in Japan for many years and wrote many serious books on Japan and Japanese Culture. Mr. Griffis was brought to Japan in 1870 to assist in the modernization of Japanese Schools. He became a respected educator and author within Japan and was twice honored with the Order of the Rising Sun – in 1907 with the Gold Rays with Rosette and in 1926 with the higher honor of Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon.

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The Art of Book Design: Bound by a Spell

Hon. Mrs. Greene (Louisa Lelias Plunket). Bound by a Spell; or, The Hunted Witch of the Forest. London, Paris, New York & Melbourne: Cassell & Company, Limited, 1885. Illustrations by Gordon Browne. First edition.

I chose today’s book cover mostly because of the snow. I thought it would be nice on a hot day. Brrr…

 

Photo via: L.W. Currey, Inc.

The book is available to read at The Internet Archive

The Art of Book Design: Are We a Stupid People, by One of Them

Charles Joseph Weld-Blundell. Are We a Stupid People, by One of Them. London; Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd., 1908.

A book of commentary about the social and moral conditions in Britain at the turn of the last century.

 

Cover photo via: Nemfrog

The book is available to read at The Internet Archive

Eucalyptus Flowers

Lofty has sent us the happiest little flowers I’ve ever seen.

Winter is also the time for some of our eucalyptus to flower. Most do it way up in the sky and usually you only know by the carpet of spent pale yellow flowers on the ground underneath the tree. This one however (a street tree) offered its flowers at eye level for my camera to snap at. The size of the flowers is around 25mm or 1″ long.

Eucalyptus Flowers, ©Lofty, all rights reserved

The Art of Book Design: The Swedish Fairy Book

Klara Stroebe, ed. Translated by Frederick Martens. Illustrations by George W. Hood. The Swedish Fairy Book, New York, Frederick A. Stokes, 1921.

I really enjoyed Pasakas, the Latvian book of fairy tales sent in by rq, so I thought I’d check out some other foreign tales. There are a myriad of Swedish fairy tale books, but this edition caught  my eye. In the preface to the book the author tells us that,

 There has been no attempt to “rewrite” these charming folk-and fairy-tales in the translation. They have been faithfully narrated in the simple, naive manner which their traditional rendering demands.

The tales might be traditional, but the artwork isn’t. The cover art and interior plates are all rendered in soft, flowing watercolors more typical of the art nouveau period than the Medieval period. Enjoy! [Read more…]

Z is for Zaffre

From Nightjar,

Z is for Zaffre

Zaffre.

A deep blue pigment obtained from cobalt ore. I thought these Lithodora prostrata flowers were close enough.

 

Link to previous alphabet post

♦♦♦

It’s obvious that Nightjar put a lot of time and thought into this project and I thank her so much for sharing it with all of us. The series has been full of surprises and gorgeous photography and along the way I learned a few new colors and fell in love with a jet black cat, who is my final choice for favourite – B is for Black Mia with the soft green eyes.