Folio Archives 262: The Pink Fairy Book by Andrew Lang 2007

Lang’s Rainbow Fairy Books

What is it about these fairy books that attracts so much attention now?

When they were originally published, they were poor sellers for the Folio Society, and some were eventually given away as a joining incentive. Now many attract ridiculous prices on the secondary market, despite their contents varying from the horrible, to the charming, to the rather banal. Each of the twelve books is illustrated by a different artist. The Blue Fairy Book is still available direct from the FS.



The rainbow Fairy Books were first published by Andrew Lang (1844-1912) between 1889 and 1910. The twelve books listed in order of publication by Lang and then the FS followed by the artist are :-
Blue Fairy Book (1889) (2003) Charles van Sandwyk
Red Fairy Book (1890) (2008) Niroot Puttapipat
Green Fairy Book (1892) (2009) Julian de Narvaez
Yellow Fairy Book (1894) (2008) Danuta Mayer
Pink Fairy Book (1897) (2007) Debra McFarlane
Grey Fairy Book (1900) (2013) Lauren Nassef
Violet Fairy Book (1901) (2010) Bob Venables
Crimson Fairy Book (1903) (2011) Tim Stevens
Brown Fairy Book (1904) (2010) Omar Rayyan
Orange Fairy Book (1906) (2013) Tomislav Tomiç
Olive Fairy Book (1907) (2012) Kate Baylay
Lilac Fairy Book (1910) (2012) Caitlin Hackett

The Nursery Rhyme Book from 2016 is sometimes also included in this series.



All the books are the same height and depth, and of similar external design, adding to their attraction.

Lang, a Scot and Oxford scholar, collected fairy tales from many varied sources and from all over the world, and then published them in a rather random order in successive books, each of a different colour. He was significantly assisted in his endeavours by his wife Nora, who was entirely responsible for some of the later books. In many cases, this was the first time many of the tales had appeared in English, or even in print at all. He was careful to distinguish myths from folk tales and was careful to exclude the former.

As a random example, and because it is probably the brightest book in the collection, and to benefit the few FS aficionados who do not own one of these books, I have chosen the Pink Fairy Book for a detailed review.

The Pink Fairy Book compiled by Andrew Lang 2007

The Pink Fairy Book contains tales from Denmark, Japan, Sweden, Sicily and many other places. They vary from the horridly frightening to those with the traditional happy ending. Stories about witches, goblins and giants sit beside those featuring cute animals, beautiful maidens and courageous youths. Always read the story yourself first before reading one to a child at bedtime, or you may end up with the child sleeping in your bed to recover from night terrors.

This (and all the books in the series) is an imposingly large volume with xx + 335 pages set in large type on thicker than average Caxton wove paper. There is a ten page introduction by A S Byatt and 16 full colour illustrations and numerous line drawing endpieces by Debra McFarlane. There are 41 different stories, the details of which are included can be seen in the following photos.

The dark pink endpapers are printed with a silver picture. Bound in bright pink cloth, the cover and spine are blocked with pictures in purple, white and silver. The page tops and the slipcase (26.1x20.5cm.) are dark pink.







































































An index of the other illustrated reviews in the "Folio Archives" series can be viewed here.

>1 wcarter: I am bemused by the huge demand for these books. IMO this is a Dutch tulip bubble. I will be gobsmacked if these books are worth 10% of the current prices in 10 years. I suppose time will tell. 🤷‍♀️

>1 wcarter: What is it about these fairy books that attracts so much attention now?

Folio Society's increased presence on Instagram and/or Facebook. It's the colourful, pretty spines that photograph well on the shelf that people love to show off.

It is only a matter of time that they will reprint this series. Now that they are “popular” and have a larger social media presence they are of course in tune with what the second hand market demands are - Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey Maturin and Andrew Lang’s Fairy Tales - the latter being more “instagramable” and then I would bet that this series is more inclined to be reprinted, now that the folio demographic has changed and younger more flashy inclined individuals that love sharing colourful books on their shelves on Facebook.

Edit: correcting auto correct on iPhone that adds banal words that seem so out of place that I’m left shocked.

I had collected this entire series plus the Nursery Rhyme Book. They are indeed beautiful and well made, probably the most talked-about books on my shelves when people came over. I read the Pink Fairy Book, and one or two stories from each of the other books. It was a difficult read for me. Maybe it was the writing by Andrew Lang or the time period or maybe both. It was sometimes confusing to understand what was going on. Words we do not normally use anymore I had to look up. It doesn't translate well to our modern times IMO. I wanted to pass them along to my children but when they tried to read them, it did not hold their interest. I ended up selling the entire set for a very reasonable price a few years ago. What makes these books so attractive now? This is the age of owning material things and completing sets. Though they are beautiful, the writing was not satisfying for me.

>5 Eastonorfolio: “This is the age of owning material things and completing sets”

I agree entirely. I’ve been following eBay and FB and it seems that’s exactly what I am seeing. But for how long?

>4 ironjaw: It is only a matter of time that they will reprint this series.

Hmm, I'm not so sure the will is there to do it. I assume they have the technology to rebuild the series if they really want to (the continuing presence of the Blue Fairy Book is evidence of that) but would they really sell thousands of copies? If I was Folio I might have considered dipping my toe into the water to test demand for maybe a couple of the later (and rarer) issues but their lack of action leads me to conclude it's not going to happen. They've written the idea off as a source of serious profit. Similarly, I have officially given up on a reprint of the Aubrey-Maturin series and have accepted that I will evermore be confronted by the two gaps on the shelf. I will certainly never, ever be tempted anywhere close to the stupid prices that have been demanded in recent years.

>3 adriano77: The colorful designs and illustrations made these volumes (as well as the British Folk Tales sets) very tempting to me. Fortunately I was already well aware of my distaste for reading Folk Tales, so I did not yield to the temptation to buy a few, which would likely have led me to feel obligated to complete the set.

I'm sure there are many, many people that own this entire series, and will never read the stories. They just want something attractive on their shelves to show off and brag about.

>7 folio_books: that may be so. However, I would assume 12 volumes would not be so difficult on the balance sheet compared to the 20 volume O’Brian set. In all honesty, Glenn, I had too given up on ever completing the Aubrey Maturin set of 12 I had so far, but found 7 the ones i was missing secondhand for £50 (without slipcase alas) each in a moments notice and the last one (The Reverse of the Medal) I paid £101 for on eBay last November, hence completing the set.

It’s always possible, if you have patience and hope. I did wait I think 6 or 7 years to complete it though and I still haven’t read the series. Do let me know which two you are missing? I will keep an eye out in my travels.

>9 Eastonorfolio: That’s a shame. Having books and not reading them but then again as I said just before I have yet to read Aubrey Maturin

>10 ironjaw:

That's okay if you're prepared to compromise but I'm not. For my money I expect a slipcase in good condition and a book in excellent condition, with no writing, bookplates or anything else that detracts from my reading enjoyment. For my missing O'Brians (The Yellow Admiral and Blue at the Mizzen) it has been my policy not to cross the three figure boundary (£100) all this time and I see no reason to change now. And if these unreasonable conditions mean I am never destined to fill those gaps, so be it. I'd rather be without, truly.

>5 Eastonorfolio: Coincidentally, you also bought all 13 of them in an age where people were owning material things and complete sets? And read one, and a few bits of the other dozen?

>11 folio_books: I agree, Glenn. For the money you pay for folio books they should be spotless. The £100 mark is what my mental stop is as well, though I crossed it £1.88 at £101.88 for The Reverse of the Medal that came with Tw slipcase. It’s only the other 7 that were sans slipcase. I’ll have to later find a professional to remake a slipcase matching the colour so I have budgeted around £20 to £30 a slipcase and at £50 a pop a total of £80 it’s not that bad for what I will eventually pay in total.

>12 What_What: I admit I fell head over heels for the Rainbow Fairy books and other sets as well, but I've learned the error of my ways. It took a few years, lots of money, and dozens of books to figure it out. The purge was hard at first but it gets easier.

>14 Eastonorfolio: I completely understand - I’ve ended up getting rid of a lot of the books I had initially collected just because I thought they looked really nice. And to be honest I was enabled by a lot of discussion here. Eventually I kept just the ones I myself liked.

I wonder why we aren’t as charitable in our consideration of new fans of FS. Seems like there’s a lot of judgment, when arguably, they’re what going to keep the FS solvent (though of course not by purchasing books on the secondary market).

>15 What_What: Spot on.