Songs and Poems of Fairyland. An Anthology of English Fairy Poetry.
London: Walter Scott, 1888. First Edition. Hardcover. Small octavo. 420pp. Original navy cloth illustrated with gilt titling and gilt fairy motif on upper board and on spine, beveled edges, patterned endpapers, top edge gilt. A. E. Waite (1857-1942), was, one of the leading figures in the Victorian esoteric movements. Amongst his accomplishments were the introduction of the works of Eliphas Levi to the English-speaking world, the first English publication of many of the classics of alchemy, and in 1903, the resurrection of the Golden Dawn. In this early edited work, Waite has collected poems with Fairy themes from a wide variety of English language sources: from Poe, Spenser, Ben Jonson, Hood, Shakespeare, Keats, Coleridge etc. etc. He prefaces the collection with a twenty page essay on the genre of fairy poetry. According to Waite biographer and bibliographer R. A. Gilbert this is the first issue of the first edition. Cloth lightly rubbed, spine slightly darkened with some dulling of gilt, spine ends bruised and a bit chafed with one tiny tear at lower spine, light bumping to edges and corners, page edges slightly darkened, light foxing to first and last leaves with a bit scattered through text, internally clean and unmarked. Overall a tight, clean VG+ copy of this scarce first edition. Item #62432
Sold