The Water Babies. By Charles Kingsley. Illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith.
1919. London: Hodder and Stoughton for Boots Pure Drug Company, [1919].
4to, ix, 240 pp. 12 tipped-in colour plates, each with tissue guard, green and black decorated title-page and numerous illustrations printed in green throughout the text. Original full green cloth, gilt titles on front cover and backstrip, pictorially gilt-stamped on front cover with Smith's designs. Foxing to endpapers and text block edges occasionally straying into page margins, backstrip and board tips lightly rubbed, but generally a very good copy.
§ First edition thus with Smith's illustrations. Kingsley's fairy tale and moral allegory was first serialized in Macmillian's Magazine 1862-1863 to great success. There were several illustrated editions but Jessie Wilcox Smith's is considered the best. Item #123865
Price: $125.00