Folio Society Published Works Number 1211
Barrie, J M - Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
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Barrie, J M - Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (Published in by The Folio Society in 2004. Large volume (around 12 x 15 inches). A modern reproduction of the 1912 original, complete with Arthur Rackham's beautiful drawings. 12 tipped-in colour plates and additional 22 b/w line drawings by Rackham. Rackham selected 12 of the original 50 colour plates from the first edition and redrew them for a version in the Peter Pan Portfolio in 1912. These are reproduced here. 150 pages. Before the time of Wendy, Tinker Bell and Captain Hook, before even Never-Never Land itself, Peter Pan was an ordinary baby. All babies, having been birds before they were humans, were 'a little wild during the first few weeks, and very itchy about the shoulders, where their wings used to be'. But, unlike other babies, Peter decided to escape and flew away over the rooftops back to Kensington Gardens. But it was by no means a simple matter for Peter to resume life as a bird and, as is pointed out to him early on by Solomon Caw, his destiny is to be a 'Betwixt-and Between'. From being trapped on the island in the Serpentine and escaping in a boat made out of a bird's nest, to learning the ways of the fairies – whose best trick is to pretend to be something else, usually a flower – Peter Pan's adventures in the enchanted world of 'the little people' are where the legend began. Peter Pan was created by the novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie (1860-1937) to preserve the memory of a younger brother who had died as a child. After the phenomenal success of the stage version, in which Barrie introduced the characters and settings we know so well today, Hodder and Stoughton commissioned Arthur Rackham in 1905 to illustrate a special gift edition of the original stories. The twelve colour plates in this facsimile edition, together with the black-and-white line drawings, are among Rackham's finest and a reminder of why the Edwardian years were the golden age of book illustration. Brilliantly capturing the landscape of the gardens, with their broad tree-lined avenues, shimmering lakes and romantic glades, Rackham fills this Arcadia with a dazzling array of fairies and spirits, who dance on spiders' webs, argue with the birds and make mischief with the park signs. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. )
