Gallery of Children, A. by MILNE, A.A.; Le Mair, H. Willebeek

London: Stanley Paul & Co., 1925. One of 500 Copies Signed by A.A. Milne
Beautifully Illustrated by Henriette Willebeek Le Mair

MILNE, A.A. A Gallery of Children. Illustrations by Saida (H. Willebeek Le Mair). London: Stanley Paul & Co., [1925].

Edition de Luxe. Limited to 500 copies (of which 485 are for sale), numbered and signed by the author (this copy being No. 32). Large quarto (12 1/2 x 10 1/8 inches; 317 x 256 mm.). [2, blank], 105, [1, printer's imprint] pp. Color pictorial title and twelve color plates (plates on glossy paper).

Original white buckram over beveled boards. Front cover and spine pictorially stamped and lettered in gilt. Top edge gilt, others uncut. Very slight soiling to cloth, endpapers slightly foxed. Short (5/8 inch) tear to outer margin of E2 (pp. 37/38). Otherwise a near fine copy.

"If we have caught within this Book/(But once) that sudden elfin look/Which flickers in a baby's face—/Or prisoned for a moment's /The shadow in a baby's dimple;/'Tis all that we have done. And so,/See to it that this Book shall go,/Not to the Folk of lofty Brow/Who have no need to wonder now,/But to the Ignorant and Simple./A.A.M." (p. [3]).

Henriette Willebeek Le Mair a.k.a. Saida, (1889-1966) was a Dutch illustrator of children's books. Le Mair's artistic development was greatly influenced by the French illustrator Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel. When she was 15, her parents took her to visit him in Paris for advice, and she returned annually for further mentoring. As a result of his advice, she studied at the Rotterdam Academy of Art from 1909 to 1911 as well as taking private drawing lessons. She first published illustrations in 1904, and a year later collaborated with her mother on a series of three books. As an illustrator, her most productive years were between 1911 and 1917. Her images appeared on postcards and children's china as well as in books. Le Mair worked in watercolor, a medium that showcased her delicate, detailed drawings with their muted flat color washes. She often used decorative cartouches shaped as ovals or rounded rectangles to set off her illustrations. Although she illustrated relatively few books, her work has always been highly regarded. One contemporary critic wrote, "Since the days of Kate Greenaway I know of no one who has caught so well the spirit of childhood as Miss Willebeek Le Mair." In her early twenties, she ran a nursery school, and she sometimes used her students as models. In 1920 Le Mair married H.P. Baron van Tuyll van Serooskerken and adopted the name "Saida". They both converted to the beliefs of Sufism, a religion of universal brotherhood and love, as taught by Murshid Inayat Khan, and spent their lives helping the poor and other charitable causes. They eventually settled in The Hague, Netherlands.