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First Edition. Hardcover. This signed and inscribed collection of nine enchanting fairy tales is the last work by the English writer Mary De Morgan (1850 1907), a women's suffragist, animal rights activist, and socialist whose politics informed her remarkable fairy tales, known for their feminism, criticism of mass production, and deviations from the traditional "happily ever afters" of the form. Mary De Morgan was the daughter of the mathematician Augustus De Morgan and the spiritualist, suffragist, and tutor to Ada Lovelace Sophia De Morgan; she was also the sister of novelist and ceramicist William De Morgan and sister-in-law to pre-Raphaelite painter Evelyn De Morgan. These influences, along with that of artist and radical socialist William Morris and his family, to whom she was a dear friend, were important ones in her work, both social and creative. This presentation copy comes signed and inscribed by Mary De Morgan "For Peggy with much love," accompanied by a hand-corrected armorial bookplate of the late archaeologist and friend of William Morris, John Henry Middleton (1846-1896), with "John Henry" in inked parentheses and "MM" inked above, likely both Peggy and MM refer to Mary Margaret Middleton (b. 1894), John Henry's daughter, from a line of "Peggys" on her father's side. Mary Margaret "Peggy" Middleton would have been 6 at the publication of The Windfairies, of an age and possibly playmates with the book's dedicatees Edward Burne-Jones' grandchildren, Angela (Thirkell), Dennis, and Clare Mackail. As De Morgan's debut collection of fairy tales On a Pincushion was born of an 1873 Christmas party which De Morgan's spent telling stories to the daughters of William Morris, the children of Edward Burne-Jones and their cousins (including the young Rudyard Kipling), this is an endearing hint that the fairy tales in her final collection, 23 years after her first, were told first to the next generation of children in the Morris and Burne-Jones family and their young friends. In this final collection published during De Morgan's lifetime, wind fairies teach a miller's daughter how to dance only to have her accused of witchcraft, a rare tree and its beloved pool of water are separated and reunited through the magic of the water cycle, a fairy cat teaches a Scrooge how to be kind to those less fortunate, a boy's beautiful voice is stolen by an evil sorcerer and the girl who loves him goes on a quest to return it to him, and more--tree spirits who save shepherdesses, fairy goatherds who play bewitching music, enchanted cups that make one love or hate at a single sip, and a beautiful maiden made entirely of rainwater, each illustrated throughout, with a frontispiece and six plates, title head-pieces and decorative initials for each fairy tale, and numerous vignettes throughout by the artist Olive Cockerell, a dear friend also of the William Morris family, and known for her illustrations of fairy tales. This is a presentable signed first edition, inscribed by the author to a young girl, of this final collection of fairy tales by a remarkable woman in the history and development of the form, in the original decorated publisher's cloth binding featuring the characters from her stories, beautifully illustrated by a fellow gifted woman artist of the era, very uncommon in the trade. The Windfairies and Other Tales collects the following fairy tales: "The Windfairies," "Vain Kesta," "The Pool and the Tree," "Nanina s Sheep," "The Gipsy s Cup," "The Story of a Cat," "Dumb Othmar," "The Rain Maiden," "The Ploughman and the Gnome." This presentation copy comes signed and inscribed by Mary De Morgan "For Peggy with much love," at verso of title page, with armorial bookplate of the late archaeologist and friend of William Morris, John Henry Middleton, with "John Henry" in inked parentheses and "MM" inked above, likely both Peggy and MM refer to Mary Margaret Middleton, John Henry's daughter. 7 3/4" X 5 3/4". 236pp, plus four pages of ads. Bo.
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