NIELSEN, Kay (1886-1957, illustrator) - Hans Christian ANDERSEN (1805-75). Fairy Tales. London: Hodder and Stoughton, [1924]. 4to (308 x 250mm). Additional pictorial title, 12 mounted coloured plates by Kay Nielsen, illustrations, many full-page, initials and decorations (some spotting to limitation leaf, light staining at the lower margin of text pages 28 and 29). Original publisher's pictorial russet calf gilt after a design by Kay Nielsen, spine lettered in gilt with rose tools in the compartments, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt, others uncut (2 very small patches of wear to the upper cover, some scuffing to lower cover, spine and extremities lightly rubbed, front free marbled endpaper lightly spotted, without the exceptionally scarce dust-jacket, as usual). FIRST NIELSEN EDITION. NUMBER 295 OF 500 COPIES SIGNED BY THE ARTIST. The binding is, apparently, unrecorded: we have been unable to identify any similar examples at auction or in the trade. "Characterised by a sense of two-dimensional flatness, Nielsen's objects and people are highly stylised: foxglove blossoms hang in measured asymmetry; princes and princesses stand on improbably long legs; and their garments billow in gravity-defying parabolas. The power of his illustration lies in his uncanny ability to retrieve a story's emotional effect on its reader and to recreate it visually in two dimensions" (The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales).
Condition Report: It looks as though the marble endpapers have been trimmed to expose gold impression and binder's mark.
