there is always hope

It is time to continue our mini-series of Andrew Lang fairy books! This post will be featuring three of these beauties: The Olive Fairy Book, The Green Fairy Book, and The Yellow Fairy Book.

First up is my personal favorite, The Olive Fairy Book, which was published in 1907. The cover features two fairies: one that is the focal point of the cover design, and another smaller one riding a bat that can be seen in the lower right-hand corner. Luckily, this is another one of Lang’s fairy tales in our holdings that still has its dust cover! The back of the cover advertises the previous books in this series, along with other stories Lang edited.

Published in 1892, The Green Fairy Book was originally supposed to be the last in a three part series of fairy books by Lang. Lang states in the preface “To the Friendly Reader - This is the third, and probably the last, of the Fairy Books of many colours.” It is safe to say that the popularity of these tales attributed to the continuation of the series.

Finally, we have The Yellow Fairy Book, which was published in 1894. Along with the fairy design on the cover, this book also has a little cat and mouse image on the spine. The last illustration, which comes from The Yellow Fairy Book, is from the Estonian fairy tale “The Dragon of the North”.

xPZ5.L263 O5, xPZ5.L263 G7, xPZ5.L263 Y4