A day by day tour of the year highlighted with verses, traditional sayings, recipes, and esoteric facts on each page. Lavishly illustrated with hundreds of drawings and designs by Kate Greenaway, more than 300 in color. With 12 full page color plates by Eugene Grasset, one of the originators of the French art nouveau poster style, which introduce each month. In Germany it is men who hate cats will never get a wife August 19 . Bookplate of Doris Frohnsdorff loosely inserted. 213+ 1 pages. quarter cloth with paper-covered boards, dust jacket. 8vo..
An enchanting day-by-day tour of the year, filled with esoterica and exotic facts, recipes, verses, and words of advice, all lavishly garnished with wonderful illustrations.
The drawings and paintings of Kate Greenway, scattered profusely through the book like bright gems, the stunning full page color plates by Grasset that open each month, and the scores of charming and authentic Victorian engravings make The Illuminated Book of Days as delightful as a garland of wildflowers. This beautifully produced book is a continual joy and dazzlement, from the creamy tone of its paper to the handsome design of each page and the exquisite four-color printing used throughout.
I ran across this book years ago (the early 1980s) and loved the illustrations, quaint sayings, parts of verse and various historical references cited for specific days, months and seasons (also in my mind the illustrator, Kate Greenaway, is the true author of this book as the watercolor illustrations give the book its true aesthetic quality). I just wish I would've purchased my own copy of it as I'm about to try and interlibrary loan this via my local public library for the second time!
A delightful collection of miscellany: folklore, recipes for things like lark gravy and switchel, bits of poetry, historical facts ... it's very interesting. What makes me want to purchase it for my own personal collection are the beautiful, hand-drawn illustrations by Kate Greenaway and Eugene Grasset: I could spend 30 solid minutes looking at one of the full-page plates and still find something new in it the next time I picked up the book.