The Olive Fairy Book

First published in 1907, this volume in the coloured fairy-book series gathers wonder tales from Turkey, India, Denmark, Armenia, the Sudan, and other sources, retold in English for family reading. Typical pieces involve youngest children, enchanted animals, clever women, and tests set by kings, witches, or jinn. Settings move among palaces, forests, and desert camps; the stories are independent, with no frame narrator. The texts are uniform literary retellings rather than dialect transcripts. The book is a miscellaneous anthology of traditional narrative, not an original novel and not a folklore monograph.

Bound in olive cloth, cover and spine blocked with a design in gilt, red and white. Green endleaves with a design in gold. Dark red slipcase.