Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book: Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations

Published in 1916 as Europe crumbled into war, this collection gathers fairy tales from the Allied nations as a gesture of cultural solidarity. Edmund Dulac, whose illustrations rival his more famous contemporary Arthur Rackham, hand-painted every plate in the book, creating images of startling delicacy and dreamlike color. The stories span six traditions: Russia's Snow Maiden, whose innocent joy cannot survive the coming of spring; Japan's enchanted scrolls; Italian tales of cunning peasants; Serbian hero narratives; Flemish folklore; and English classics. What distinguishes this volume from countless other fairy tale anthologies is its historical moment: Dulac assembled these stories as acts of cultural defiance, proof that the Allied spirit encompassed not just armies but the entire imaginative heritage of nations. The tales themselves carry the full weight of traditional folklore, with all its joy, cruelty, and sorrow. Reading these pages feels like stepping into a jewel-box of early 20th-century artistry, where each story is a small world unto itself, rendered in prose that has lost none of its luster over a century later.