Beautiful Books - Part 1 - An Antique Books Guide

Feast your eyes on some of these beautiful books - part two to follow. This time there's no writing - just a whole host images to give you some inspiration in your book hunt.

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Fairies by Illustrators - An Antique Books Guide

Fairy Tales are something that might have been read to us when we were children and they have been read to our mothers and fathers, there mothers and fathers and so forth for many generations. 

In fact, some of the best known fairy tales authors such as Hans Christian Andersen and the Brother's Grimm have established such a role in society that we couldn't possibly go through life without hearing of the Ugly Duckling, The Princess and the Pea or Hansel and Grettel's ginger bread house.

Needless to say, fairy tales books are some of the best illustrated thanks to the creativity of the stories and the popularity that audiences received them with. Some of the world's most prolific illustrators, known as the Golden Age illustrators, have illustrated fairy tales books including Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac and Kay Nielsen.

I have tried to showcase a few examples of the classic 'fairy' below, illustrated by various authors throughout various eras. Constantly re-drawn and re-imagined, fairies are a chance for illustrators to showcase their imagination and skill.

E.S Hardy - Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales

Hebert Cole - Fairy-Gold

Jeannie McConnell - A Pilgrimage in Fairyland

Andersen's Fairy Tales - Margaret W Tarrant

Unknown

R. Savage - Queen Mab's Fairy Realm

A.D McCormick - Drake's Drum 

Charles Robinson - True Annals of Fairyland

Sir John Gilbert - Tales from Shakespeare

Unknown

Bright Binding - The Most Beautiful Books - An Antique Books Guide

Sometimes I like to let the books speak for themselves and this post is one of those times. I want to show you how beautiful old books can be. I'm not talking lovely illustrations and artistic pictures. Just the covers. They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover but we all do so judge these and see what you think...

If you want any of these I'm sure I can help find a copy - let me know if you have any questions too!

vaugc002@gmail.com

Poetical Works - an art of Illustration (An Antique Books Guide)

Poetical works are a staple of British literature, forming an important section of printing history.
Yet these books are also valuable as examples of the art of illustration for poetical works display some of the most extravagant and attractive decorations around.
A poetical works book can focus on any poet, from Longfellow to William Cowper, and generally feature many different poems and several illustrations.

Below are a selection of some that I have had the pleasure of owning. Hopefully my readers might find poetry more attractive once they see what the books are like.

Cover design

Poetical works are most commonly gilt decorated, featuring intricate gold patterns that integrate the book's title and often floral designs to create a highly presentable exterior.

Some feature multiple colours for decoration and generally black is used to complete the effect.

Illumination

Another aspect of these books is the art of illumination.
You can read my blog post about illuminating here:
http://anantiquebooksguide.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/illuminating-illuminated-books-antique.html

These books will often features the usual decoration for the covers but will also feature a similarly designed title page inside which uses colours and gilding to create a design of stunning beauty.
These books are often sought after purely for this page.

Other designs

There are of course other designs for the book overs of Poetical Works - the ones I have shown you already are mostly Victorian era and so similar in appearance.

The book below is Victorian too but features a more subtle design styled in the Art-Nouveau fashion. Note that flowers and gilt play a major role in the design still.

This is a more simple poetical works yet features gilt and a black design on the cover just with lesser impact than some of the more highly decorated editions.

This design is more subtle still and exhibits the style of a Georgian or Edwardian era book. The blank covers are cheaper for printers to create but the decorative spine makes the book look presentable on a bookshelf. 

This highly decorative book is early Edwardian and displays more inventive design with a range of additional colours, partly due to artistic taste and partly due to new technology allowing this.

And that marks the end of this post.
Thanks, as ever, for reading!