Prince Prigio (Large paper edition, with signed letter from Lang)

Andrew Lang; Gordon Browne

 Bristol : J.W. Arrowsmith ; London : Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1889

Signed by Andrew Lang on a 1 page manuscript letter on Lang's letterhead mounted to front pastedown.  Limited large paper edition, hand numbered "2".  With Twenty-seven illustrations by Gordon Browne.  4to, 26 cm.  Bound in publisher's 3/4 parchment-backed boards.  Split along joints.  7 preliminary leaves, 144 pages.   Internally, quite nice.  *Autographed by author.*  A children's fable written by Lang concerning a prince who was "too clever." 

Andrew Lang was a prolific Scottish scholar, folklorist, anthropologist, historian, and classic children's author. He is best known for his popular 12 volume fairy books. His work, "represents the first maturing of a scientific interest in the folk narrative as a means of discovering the nature of primeval man and the details of his unrecorded history. "The student of this lore," he wrote, "can look back and see the long trodden way behind him, the winding tracks through marsh and forest and ever burning sands" (Green 1946, p. 37). His contention that the myth is a "historical" document, useful for the revelation of a cultural or value system, became so generally accepted as an assumption in anthropology that his originality is often forgotten." - Jacob W. Gruber, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2008.