EAST OF THE SUN AND WEST OF THE MOON

[London]: Hodder & Stoughton, [1914]. First Edition with Nielsen's illustrations, trade issue. 284 x 220 mm. (11 1/8 x 8 3/4"). 1 p.l., 206 pp., [1] leaf.
Attractive dark blue morocco by Asprey (stamp-signed in gilt on pastedown), replicating the original cloth binding in color and decoration, upper cover and spine decoratively stamped and lettered in gilt, gilt dentelles, cream silk moiré endpapers, all edges gilt. With 25 tipped-in color plates with descriptive tissue guards, numerous black and white text illustrations. ◆Back cover with the vaguest hint of soiling and use, otherwise a virtually faultless copy.

Offered here in a beautiful morocco binding imitating the design of the original cloth, this is the greatest work of celebrated Danish illustrator Kay Nielsen (1886-1957); it may also be the most beautiful children's book ever published. The work includes 15 Norwegian folk tales accompanied by Nielsen's darkly evocative illustrations that conjure wintry landscapes, moody heroes, and otherworldly visions. As the "Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales" notes, Nielsen's designs marry strong linearity to delicate coloring, with "highly stylized" people and objects. "Foxglove blossoms hang in measured asymmetry; princes and princesses stand on improbably long legs; and their garments billow in gravity-defying parabolas. The power of [Nielsen's] illustrations lies in his uncanny ability to retrieve a story's emotional effect on its reader and to recreate it visually in two dimensions." The high-end New Bond Street emporium Asprey has been a London fixture since 1781, serving as jewellers to a long line of British monarchs, and they sell a range of luxury goods, including finely bound books (for a short time, they even owned the merged firms of Zaehnsdorf and Sangorski & Sutcliffe)..