Description
The Baby’s Bouquet
The Baby’s Bouquet. A Fresh Bunch of Old Rhymes and Tunes and Companion To The Baby’s Opera. Arranged and decorated by Walter and Lucy Crane. Published by George Routledge and Sons . Undated -but known to be 1878. 56 Pages. Hardcover. Patterned boards in dark green and yellow. Brown cloth spine. Decorated end papers. Eleven full page illustrations, printed in colour by Edmund Evans, and songs from Britain and Europe including Polly put the Kettle on, Hot Cross Buns, The Little Cock Sparrow, The North Wind & The Robin, ABC, Charley Over the Water, London Bridge, Pussy Cat, The Three Little Kittens, Zwei Hasen and Ringl Tanz. Condition: Very Good. The paper on the boards is good although there is a little wear at the corners. The pages within have occasional creases in the top right corners where they have been turned, some light foxing, but otherwise clean and fresh. There are a few minor breaks in the hinges but no loose pages.
A Day in A Child’s Life
First edition. Illustrated by Kate Greenaway. Music by Myles B. Foster (Organist of the Foundling Hospital). Engraved and printed by Edmund Evans. Original light green glazed pictorial boards designed with yellow reeded borders and sunflowers surrounding the central title. Green cloth spine, green endpapers. London, George Routledge & Sons, 1881.
The book contains nine songs for voice and piano by Myles B. Foster detailing activities from a day in a child’s life including “Waking”, “The Lesson”, “Playtime”, “A Romp”, “Tired” and “Sleeping”. Beautifully illustrated throughout by Kate Greenaway, engraved and printed by her frequent collaborator the wood-engraver Edmund Evans.
Condition: Soiled boards with some slight damage to edges and corners. Interior: 29 pages in good condition, illustrated throughout with coloured illustrations on thick laid paper. Inscribed in ink to Noel Thomson from Aunt Jessie Xmas 1899 on the second endpaper at the beginning of the book (upper right). Overall, an excellent example of Greenaway and Evans’ combined genius.
The daughter of an engraver, Greenaway trained at the Slade School of Fine Art in London and began her career as a designer of greeting cards. Like her contemporary Walter Crane, she collaborated with the engraver Evans to publish children’s books in colour, which achieved great commercial success. She produced an idealized and nostalgic image of rural childhood, dressing the children she illustrated in an eighteenth-century style that in turn became fashionable for children of her day.
