(3) Books of Fantasy Tales, From Bayley, Carrington, and Tolkien. 

Size: (largest) 8 X 5 1/2 X 1 in. 

This lot consists of three books. Two are tales and one is a fantasy novel by Tolkien, whose name is synonymous with fantasy. The first book is The New Tale Of  A Tub by F. W. N .Bayley, the second book is Poor Blossom: The Story Of A Horse by Edith Carrington, and the last is Tolkien’s Farmer Giles of Ham. 

The Bayley book is based on A Tale of A Tub by Jonathan Swift, who also wrote Gulliver’s Travels. A Tale Of A Tub was Swift’s first major work and was composed between 1694 and 1697 and published anonymously in 1704, and it was scorned by the Church for its profanity and attack on religion. Yet it was enormously popular because it was a satire on religious excess, and the book made Swift notorious, but not rich. The full title of the Bayley book is The New Tale Of  A Tub. An Adventure in Verse, with Illustrations designed by Lieut. J. S. Cotton and reduced from Aubry’s drawings, and it was published in London by Wm S. Orr. The boards are a reddish brown, with incised borders and   a gilt title surrounded by a beautiful gilt decoration on the front cover, there are pale yellow endpapers with an inscription dated 1850 on the front flyleaf, then an engraved frontispiece titled The Climax - A Knotty Point, the illustrated title page has a steel engraving by Griffith and is dated 1847 at the bottom, the next page says London, George Woodfall and Son, who was probably the printer, there are 34 pages of text with six plates inside the text, six pages of ads at the rear and two pages written by F W N Bayley that promote the book, all the edges are gilt, and we found only two copies of the 1841 first edition online and only a couple of copies of the 1847 edition in Special Collections around the world, according to WorldCat, so the book is rare too. The book measures  7 1/8 x 5 1/2 inches wide and is in very good condition, with a tight binding and clean pages and text for the most part, there are faint bumps at the heel and crown and faint rubbing at the tips, the inscription page has a small horizontal hole near the bottom, the regular title page has wisps of browning, there are wisps of browning in some of the margins    of the engravings, and overall a very attractive copy of this edition. 

The Carrington book is titled Poor Blossom: The Story Of A Horse, written by Edith Carrington, and published in London by S. W. Partridge on Paternoster Row. Carrington’s name is not mentioned on the title page, but she was the author of two books listed on the title page: Neddy And Me and Only A Ladybird. The blue covers have gilt lettering on the spine and front board, with pale yellow endpapers, an inscription on the front flyleaf, “c. 1870” in pencil on the half-title, a frontis drawing of Blossom just after birth, the title page has a vignette of Blossom and “Miss Pease” is inscribed at the top of the page, the next page says the book was printed by Geo. Watson, the dedication page depicts a working horse, there are two pages of Contents, 87 pages of text, numerous illustrations, 24 pages of ads at the rear, and the very first ad features Publications for the Promotion of Kindness to Animals. The earliest edition we could find of Poor Blossom was 1876, per WorldCat, which coincides with the penciled note on the half-title, and most of the copies we found of this title are modern reprints, so this copy is an early and rare edition, and it might be a first edition, but there's not enough information on WorldCat to tell. Edith Carrington (1853 - 1929) was a well-known English animal rights activist. She advocated for animal welfare. Her first book was Stories for Somebody, written when she was 35, and she later wrote a number of animal stories for children. Poor Blossom is narrated from the perspective of Blossom, a horse who endures various hardships and mistreatment throughout its life. Carrington uses Blossom's experiences to shed light on the broader issues of animal cruelty and the need for compassion and empathy towards animals. The story is filled with moments of both suffering and kindness, as the horse encounters different owners and situations. Much like Anna Sewell's Black Beauty, written around the same time, Carrington's writing aims to evoke empathy in readers, encouraging them to consider the welfare and humane treatment of animals, but Blossom doesn’t have the happy ending that Beauty finds, and the story is really about the harsh realities of life as a working horse that is subservient to its masters. The book measures 7 1/4 x 5 1/8 inches wide and is in terrific condition. The binding is tight and the pages and text are very clean, as are the illustrations, with just light bumps on the heel and crown of the spine, faint rubbing at the tips, and faint brown spots in the margins towards the rear. 

J R R Tolkien (1892 - 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In 1972, he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II, and he’s been called the "father of modern fantasy literature" and is widely regarded as one of the most influential authors of all time. (See BAL 3310) Farmer Giles of Ham is a comic medieval fable written by Tolkien in 1937 and published in 1949. It describes the encounter between Farmer Giles and a wily dragon named Chrysophylax and how Farmer Giles rises from humble beginnings to rival the king of the land, it is set in Britain in an imaginary period of the Dark Ages, and it parodies different aspects of traditional dragon-slaying tales. The book has tan boards with black lettering in the spine and a mythical monster on the front cover, patterned endpapers featuring a mythical monster, an illustrated half-title, then a colored frontis of a battle with a dragon, the title page is in Latin and English and says “in the vulgar tongue The Rise and Wonderful Adventures of Farmer Giles, Lord of Tame, Count of Worminghall and King of the Little Kingdom”, embellished by Pauline Diana Baynes and published in London by George Allen & Unwin and in Boston by Houghton Mifflin, it is a fifth impression according to the dust jacket, which means it was published around 1965, the book is illustrated and has 79 pages of text and a leaf at the rear which speaks about Chrysophylax and the Hobbit, and the book comes with the dust jacket, which has a George Allen and Unwin sticker on the front flap. The book measures 8 x 5 1/2 inches wide and is in very good condition, with a tight binding and lena pass and text, and the dust jacket is in very good condition too, with just light browning on the spine.