Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Andersen. Illustrated by Dugald Stewart Walker. London: George Harrap, [1914). First Edition Thus. Publisher’s green cloth boards, title lettered in gilt to spine, illustrated panel to upper covers. Neat gift inscription to endpaper, overall a nice bright copy.

Illustrated with a frontispiece & eleven full-colour plates and twenty two-tone illustrations in the text.

A classic collection of Andersen’s tales beautifully illustrated by Dugald Stewart Walker. Of all the early 20th-century illustrated editions of Andersen’s tales, Dugald Stewart Walker’s 1914 volume for George Harrap & Co. is one of the most distinctive and artistically significant.  It stands as a fascinating artifact of its era, bridging the ornate aesthetic of the late Golden Age of Illustration and the emerging, more graphic styles of the early modern period.

Walker’s work is deeply rooted in Art Nouveau. You see it in the sinuous, flowing lines of his figures (especially his ethereal, willowy maidens and grotesque, twisting witches), the elaborate use of floral and organic borders, and the overall sense of decorative elegance.