FAIRY FINE-EAR'S FANCIES.

London : Sydney J. Saunders & Co., [1889]. First edition. Charmingly illustrated poetic fancies for children, with "The Mermaid and the Zoophite", "Swinging - Swinging - To, and Fro", "The Fairies and the Bees" and "Said a Dewdrop to a Skylark". Seemingly a variant issue, with the imprint of Sydney John Saunders (1837-1923), stationer and manufacturer of Christmas cards, etc. - the handful of other copies traced bearing the imprint of the similar Sockl & Nathan firm. Undated, but the book, beautifully printed in Leipzig, was noticed in the press in the latter part of 1889 - "full of such wonderfully nice pictures" (Newcastle Courant, 14th December) - and here has a Christmas 1889 gift inscription. Oblong foolscap 4to (19 x 21cm). [24]pp. Illustrations throughout, mainly in sepia and grey, but with four pages in full colour, by Jessie Sophia Watkins (1850-1902). Original cloth-backed pictorial glazed boards; some wear and bruising to outer corners; boards lightly tanned; some mild internal browning and spotting, but a very good copy in the original pictorial dust-jacket, replicating the title-page design - the jacket worn, chipped, frayed, slightly torn, lightly spotted and a little defective on the blank lower panel, but a very early surviving example of a British pictorial jacket (not listed by Tanselle) and a remarkable survival on a children's book. Contemporary gift inscription to Ethel Reich from her Auntie May, dated Christmas 1889. No copy traced in any major UK library.