Customer Reviews
Exquisite book. 
2007-05-20
Exquisite book. My granddaughter has been totally enchanted with it since receiving it for her 8th birthday.
Wonderful book!!!!!!!!!!!! 2007-05-12
I can really afirm that this book is just what I thought..
BEAUTIFUL..!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't doubt about buying it, you will be buying a TREASURE..
Botanically Accurate 2007-01-16
This book is a lot of fun for me as a plant lover and avid gardener because of Mary Cicely Barker's attention to detail (when she was alive, she used Kew Gardens as a resource to make sure her drawings were botanically accurate). Bug lovers feel the same way; I've seen her praised on ornithology sites because her fairy wings are accurately drawn insect wings! I like it best of her books because it contains all her drawings in one volume.
A Six-Star Book 2007-01-14
If you like fairies, the wonderfully imaginative illustrations will blow you away. Makes a terrific gift for adults who
grew up reading Barker's poems and are familiar with
her fairy portraits. It's a nice book to share with
children too.
wonderful book 2006-07-27
This is an incredible book. The poems are darling and I am not a huge poetry fan. The art work is truly amazing. Hard to believe anyone could be so talented...
Absolutely enchanting 2008-02-17
I showed this to my small children, older nieces, sister, mother, friends, and grandmother. It appealed to all of them. I bought the deluxe book of flower fairies, the complete flower fairy book and the paper doll book. I needed them for art reference books.
The difference in the first two is:
The deluxe book has a history of the author, her sketches and inspirations, timeline, her prosesses, lots of botanical notes. very collectiors edition, silver leaf and all.
The complete book has fairy's has a 1 page intro of the author then goes straight into images and poems. each has the seasons collections, but the complete has; in addition, the fairies of the garden, trees, wayside and a flower fairy alphabet.
The Joy of Fairies 
2008-02-02
Cicely Mary Barker's eight little flower fairies books were published between 1923 and 1985 making her a household name, especially in Great Britain. Published at the height of the "fairy-mania" that swept England during the early decades of the 20th century they captured in sweetly beautiful images and verse the wonder that many people felt about these elusive tiny creatures. Cicely Mary Barker (1895-1973) was predominately a self taught artist who during her lifetime suffered from ill-health and physical fragility, thus she escaped into the world of the imagination and make believe. Her unselfconscious, delicate and jewel like watercolors were influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, fellow women illustrator Kate Greenaway (1846-1901) and her love of England's many gardens.
Her inspiration for the flower fairies came from the lush English countryside and observing young children at her local village kindergarten where her sister worked as a teacher. Her fairies are delicately and truthfully observed depictions of these young children in naturalistic poses and postures, standing on or clinging to botanically correct and beautifully rendered flowers. Being no bigger than 20cm tall they live and sleep in their birth flower taking care of their respective tree or plant, as the tree or plant grows so they grow in wisdom and power too. Fairies were most popular in the late Victorian and the Edwardian ages but they continued to hold sway over the imaginations of countless children (primarily girls) up into the early modern era... and beyond.
This enchanting and wondrous volume is a collection of all eight flower fairies books including: flower fairies of the spring, summer, autumn and winter and the flower fairies of the alphabet, trees, garden and wayside. As some of the most timeless depictions of the world of faery Cicely Mary Barker captured the innocence and naivety of childhood in exquisitely rendered illustrations and simple verse. While some may see these fairies as "safe" and "tame" depictions of the primal and elemental forces of nature, in my mind they capture the spirit of a bygone era when peoples mores and values were just plain different to ours, if not in some ways better. As such her little fairies lack the cynicism, artificiality and worldliness of the modern age and will continue to hold sway over the minds of generations of fairy lovers to come and will bring out the child within in anyone willing to let themselves go.
gift of Flower Fairies 2008-01-07
I purchased this book as a Christmas gift for my sister, who loves Barker's illustrations. It arrived even more quickly than scheduled, in great condition.
A little girl long ago 2007-09-22
Sixty Five years ago, when I was a little girl, I sat at my fathers feet looking at a book that had marvelous pictures of beautiful fairys, so stunning were their bright colors and silky wings that it completely took my breath away for never could I have pictured anything quite so awsome as these tiny little creatures, that I was sure were hiding beneath the petals of flowers in mothers garden, that I had yet to see. I kept this memory all my life sharing it with my children, when they were little, and now my grandchildren. Imagine my astonishment to once again see these beautiful little people again. Take a trip back to childhood and enjoy this beautiful book, share it with your children but keep it for the child that is you.
Same faires in the all the small books 2007-09-08
Beautiful book - I am painting a mural for my daughter's room and wanted to get all the images possible so I bought all the books by this author thinking I was getting a menagerie. But I wasted $ on shipping both ways when I had to send them back upon seeing the smaller tree, flowers, and seasons books were all put together in one place. Just wanted others to know that this large hardback pretty much has it all.
