[1886] A Apple Pie

Description

Colour Plates, First Edition, Illustrated, Publishers' Original Binding

Dated via Jisc. The first edition of this work in the original publisher's binding featuring pictorial boards illustrative of four girls: two carrying apples, one playing with an apple, and one kneeling behind a flour canister while holding a rolling pin. 

Featuring a series of colourful illustrations, one per letter of the alphabet A-T, and a final single leaf for 'UVWXYZ'. Collated, complete. 

Illustrated children's book telling the tale of an apple pie, and the townsfolk's desire to have a taste of it. 

Written and illustrated by Kate Greenaway, one of the foremost Victorian children's book illustrator. She is known for her illustrations of children in quaint costumes and idyllic scenes. 

Engraved and printed by Edmund Evans. Greenaway's paintings were reproduced by chromoxylography, by which the colours were printed from hand-engraved wood blocks by the firm of Edmund Evans. Through the 1880s and 1890s, her only rivals in popularity in children's book illustration were Walter Crane and Randolph Caldecott. Greenaway was elected to membership of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours in 1889. She also illustrated books such as William Kingston's  Infant Amusements, or How to Make a Nursery Happy, George Weatherly's  The Little Folks Painting Book, and Fanny LaBlanche's Starlight Stories Told to Bright Eyes and Listening Ears.