Letters from Fairyland

This illustrated book presents a correspondence that begins when a child, Emma Gladstone, writes to ask how she might invite fairies to live in her garden. The replies, in the form of letters, notes, and small enclosures, offer instructions, invitations, and glimpses of a woodland court: portraits of fairy folk, a royal summons, and a cache of fairy money. A folded panorama shows little people said to be common in the forest. The pieces are playful and practical in tone, treating fairy hospitality as a set of manners and preparations. There is no long novelistic plot. The work is a miniature epistolary fantasy built around letters and inserts rather than a continuous narrative.

Bound in maroon paper, gilt blocked and with a printed inset paper label. Light brown slipcase with printed picture on front. Plus a 12 page concertina.