Household Stories from the Collection of the Bros. Grimm (Illustrated by Walter Crane)

Author: Grimm, J. Grimm, W. Crane, Lucy (Trans.) 
Title: Household Stories from the Collection of the Bros. Grimm 
Illustrator: Crane, Walter 
Publisher: Macmillan 
Date: 1882 
Place: London 
Dimensions: Large 8vo. 25.5cm x 17cm 

x+269pp

1st Crane edition, large paper edition. 

Blue cloth boards, gilt titles to spine, gilt rules to boards. Very good. 
Corners scuffed and bumped, small chips to cloth at head and tailcaps, diagonal crease to f.f.e.p. Foxing/toning to blank prelims. Very light foxing to frontispiece and title page. Tissue guard foxed.
Contemporary bookplate to front pastedown.

A gorgeous production that brings together the work of two sets of siblings - the Grimms and the Cranes. Spinozzi (2014) highlights the importance of this highly accessible translation of 52 stories that could easily be read aloud to or with children, compared to other scholarly translations of the period, aimed at academic adult audiences interested in the folkloric and philological significance of the Grimm brothers’ work. 

Accompanied by Walter Crane’s generous illustrations, consisting of the half title, head and tailpieces of the list of illustrations, 12 full page plates – including the title page and frontispiece -  an accompanying headpiece, tailpiece and initial to each of the Stories, with 3 additional initials where other versions or forms of the stories are given; all of which contribute substantially to the exposition of the text itself.

Walter Crane was among the most influential artists of the 19th century. Ardent socialist and early feminist, Crane was key figure in the Arts and Crafts movement, and close friend and collaborator of William Morris at the Kelmscott Press. Crane was an accomplished painter, ceiling and wallpaper designer, stained glass artist, writer and teacher, but it was his work as a children’s book illustrator during the Golden Age of Illustration that he is best remembered for. This work, Engen (1975) remarks, shows a shift “from the decorative purity of line in earlier designs toward a more pictorial style.”

A very good, handsome and desirable copy of the luxurious, large paper edition.

Bibliographic references: Osborne, pp31/2. Masse, pp33.

Engen, R.K. 1975. Walter Crane as a Book Illustrator. Academy Editions. London.

Spinozzi, P. 2014. Accurate reproduction, ingenious representation: Lucy and Walter Crane’s Household Stories, from the Collection of the Bros. Grimm (1882). Word & Image, 30(3), 261–272. doi:10.1080/02666286.2014.938541