1889 The Book of Wedding Days

Description

First Edition, Illustrated, Publishers' Original Binding

Compiled by K. E. J Reid, May Ross and Mabel Bamfield, this is a charming calendar, decorated by Walter Crane, in which quotations accompany blank spaces for each day of the year, intended to be filled in by the owner of the volume with the dates of weddings and anniversaries.

Each page is beautifully decorated in red ink and each day has a specific quotation which correlates to the day of the year. The quotations come from the writings of Shakespeare, Milton, Tennyson to name a few.

To the front free endpaper is mounted the Times newspaper's obituary of Crane, published eleven days after his death, and discussing his funeral, which took place in Golder's Green. The obituary notes that 'when by-and-by the history of English art during the past 40 years comes to be written, in that critical record his name will stand out prominently'.

Crane was an English artist and book illustrator considered to be the most influential, and among the most prolific, children's book creators of his generation.

The prior owner of this work has supplied names and years of marriages in ink on twenty-six pages.