Faeries (book)

Spelled in the archaic fashion, the title faeries refers not just to fairies, but encompasses a wide range of mythological creatures including goblins, dwarves, pixies, elves, leprechauns, ogres, boggarts, banshees, mermaids and selkies.

The book's contents include information about faerie archaeology, history, characteristics and customs, a geography of Faerieland, and a catalogue of faerie types.{{cite news |first=Sheryl |last=Harper |date=16 December 1978 |title=Faeries |newspaper=The Gazette |location=Montreal, Quebec |page=64 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57630068/faeries/ |via=Newspapers.com |url-access=limited |access-date=19 August 2020 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20200819035549/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57630068/faeries/ |archive-date=19 August 2020 |url-status=live }} It also gives in-universe advice on where faeries are most likely to be found, how to ward off faerie spells, when it is especially dangerous to come across faeries, and the ecology of faery-plant interactions.{{cite journal |first=Dennis |last=Livingston |date=1979 |title=Faeries |journal=Futures |volume=11 |issue=6 |pages=532–534 |doi=10.1016/0016-3287(79)90057-0 }} Although the book's historical information covers folklore from around the world, most of the facts, poetry and literature of faeries come from France, England, Scotland and Ireland.{{cite news |first=Carol |last=Wright |date=16 March 2003 |title=A faery tale |newspaper=The Manhattan Mercury |location=Manhattan, Kansas |page=D2 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57629261/a-faery-tale/ |via=Newspapers.com |url-access=limited |access-date=19 August 2020 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20200819033621/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57629261/a-faery-tale/ |archive-date=19 August 2020 |url-status=live }} Included amongst Lee and Froud's text are Celtic legends and ballads about faeries, as well as excerpts from poems about faeries by poets such as William Butler Yeats and Christina Rossetti.

In total, the book contains 185 illustrations, 147 in full colour.{{cite news |first=Edward |last=Barry |date=3 December 1978 |title=Potpourri: The splendor of Tut's tomb, a seaside cottage |newspaper=The Chicago Tribune |location=Chicago, Illinois |page=E3 |id={{ProQuest|169719080}} }} It is published unpaginated.{{cite news |first=Gordon |last=Winters |date=21 December 1978 |title='Faeries' beautifully fills gap in modern education |newspaper=The Lincoln Star |location=Lincoln, Nebraska |page=12 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57628076/faeries-beautifully-fills-gap-in/ |via=Newspapers.com |url-access=limited |access-date=19 August 2020 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20200819031016/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57628076/faeries-beautifully-fills-gap-in/ |archive-date=19 August 2020 |url-status=live }}{{cite web |editor1-first=Briton |editor1-last=Hadden |editor1-link=Briton Hadden |editor2-first=Henry Robinson |editor2-last=Luce |editor2-link=Henry Robinson Luce |title=Time, Volume 112 |date=1978 |publisher=Time Inc. |page=214 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZC47AQAAIAAJ }}

The idea for the book came from New York publisher Ian Ballantine. Inspired by the success of the 1977 Dutch-authored book Gnomes, Ballentine recruited the two British illustrators Brian Froud and Alan Lee to produce a similar tome about fairies{{cite magazine |first=Fred |last=Hauptfuhrer |date=19 March 1979 |title=For Artists Alan Lee & Brian Froud, Life Is a Faerie Tale Come True |magazine=People |volume=11 |issue=11 |url=https://people.com/archive/for-artists-alan-lee-brian-froud-life-is-a-faerie-tale-come-true-vol-11-no-11/ |access-date=23 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190709001019/https://people.com/archive/for-artists-alan-lee-brian-froud-life-is-a-faerie-tale-come-true-vol-11-no-11/ |archive-date=9 July 2019 |url-status=live}} as a follow up to Gnomes (a third book, Giants, was published following Faeries).{{cite web |first=Peter S |last=Beagle |date=2 December 1979 |title=Giants — They're Mostly Big and Dumb |newspaper=The San Francisco Examiner |location=San Francisco, California |page=4 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57635629/giants-theyre-mostly-big-and-dumb/ |via=Newspapers.com |url-access=limited |access-date=19 August 2020 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20200819090248/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57635629/giants-theyre-mostly-big-and-dumb/ |archive-date=19 August 2020 |url-status=live }}

Sharing lodging in Chagford on the edge of Dartmoor,{{cite news |last=Garth |first=John |date=28 May 2017 |title=The man who brings Tolkien to life |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/man-brings-tolkien-life/ |url-access=limited |access-date=16 March 2020 }} Lee and Froud spent nine months researching, illustrating and writing the book. They referred to the work of leading British folklorist Katharine Briggs as one of their main sources for information about faeries.{{cite news |first=Lynn |last=Cline |date=1 November 2002 |title=Brian Froud's Enchanting Faerie World |newspaper=The Santa Fe New Mexican |location=Santa Fe, New Mexico |page=34 |id={{ProQuest|331467425}} {{Gale|A180362518}} }} Other sources include 19th-century folklorists such as Robert Hunt's Popular Romances of the West of England (1865) and Lady Wilde's Ancient Legends of Ireland (1887), as well as stories from the Middle Ages such as those told by Gerald of Wales.{{cite thesis |type=M.A |first=Constance |last=Reik |date=1985 |title=The Nature of the British Fairies of Medieval and Folk Literature: An Annotated Bibliography, 1900–1983 |pages=40–41 |publisher=Western Michigan University |isbn=9798641585376 |id={{ProQuest|303426717}} }} According to Froud, Ballantine had "expected a fun, jolly book with fluffy faeries, and what he got were all these green horrible creatures with nasty teeth that bit your ankles, and he was horrified. But our research was based on folklore and on what faeries were really like."

Froud stated that while planning the book, he and Lee intended to make their artwork indistinguishable from the other's, and to "actually draw on top of each other's art." Due to time constraints, however, they were unable to do it in such a way. Instead, they each chose what they wanted to illustrate and divided the work between them, taking into account one another's artistic strengths and weaknesses. Froud said, "We also made sure there were a few images that were absolutely a crossover, so I was partly in his style and he was partly in my style."{{cite magazine |last=Barder |first=Ollie |date=13 September 2019 |title=Brian Froud On 'The Dark Crystal', 'Labyrinth' And His Love Of Nature |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2019/09/13/brian-froud-on-the-dark-crystal-labyrinth-and-his-love-of-nature/ |magazine=Forbes |access-date=23 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200625143825/https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2019/09/13/brian-froud-on-the-dark-crystal-labyrinth-and-his-love-of-nature/#c8a6c6c126be |archive-date=25 June 2020 |url-status=live}}

File:John Duncan (1911) Riders of the Sidhe.jpg's 1911 painting The Riders of the Sidhe (above), according to Dimitra Fimi.]]

Faeries features watercolours and pencil drawings.{{cite magazine |date=11 October 2002 |title=Reviews Annex: Illustrated |magazine=Publishers Weekly Online |id={{Gale|A477397429}} }} Comparing the two authors' illustrative styles, writer James Clarke remarked that Lee's images "skew slightly more towards a sense of realism" while Froud's style "is slightly more heightened and his fairy faces are immediately identifiable."{{cite book |first=James |last=Clarke |date=2017 |title=The Year of the Geek: 365 Adventures from the Sci-Fi Universe |publisher=Aurum Press |isbn=978-1-78131-693-1 |page=194 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gctjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA194 }} Writing for Library Journal, M. L. del Mastro described the illustrations as a mix of "Maxfield Parrish delicates with Disney/Hildebrandt grotesques." The Washington Post identified the book's "stylistic debts" as being to Arthur Rackham, Richard Dadd, Willy Pogany, and the pre-Raphaelite painters John William Waterhouse, John Everett Millais and Edward Burne-Jones.{{cite news |date=3 December 1978 |title=THE LIGHT FANTASTIC |newspaper=The Washington Post |location=Washington, D.C. |page=E10 |id={{ProQuest|146850547}} }} The Atlantic Monthly also likened the illustrative style to the painters Arnold Böcklin and Hieronymus Bosch. Fantasy literature scholar Dimitra Fimi wrote that Lee's illustration for the entry "Faerie Rades", depicting the procession of the Irish fairies as "splendidly dressed men and women in medieval style, most of them riding decorated horses and one of them holding an unfolding banner," took a strong influence from John Duncan's 1911 painting The Riders of the Sidhe.{{cite book |last=Fimi |first=Dimitra |chapter=Filming Folklore: Adapting Fantasy for the Big Screen through Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings |editor1-last=Bogstad |editor1-first=Janice M. |editor2-last=Kaveny |editor2-first=Philip E. |title=Picturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jNjKrXRP0G8C&pg=PA89 |year=2011 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-8473-7 |page=89}}

Faeries was first published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. in November 1978.{{cite news |first=Sue |last=Dawson |agency=Gannett News Service |date=27 January 1979 |title=Existence of 'Gnomes' is no secret |newspaper=The Ithaca Journal |location=Ithaca, New York |department=Journal Magazine |page=4 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57693273/existence-of-gnomes-is-no-secret/ |via=Newspapers.com |url-access=limited |access-date=20 August 2020 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20200820063943/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57693273/existence-of-gnomes-is-no-secret/ |archive-date=20 August 2020 |url-status=live }} The book reached number four on the New York Times Best Seller list.{{cite news |title=Best Sellers |date=19 November 1978 |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/11/19/archives/best-sellers-fiction-nonfiction-footnotes.html |access-date=23 June 2020 }}{{cite book |author=Heritage Capital Corporation |date=2005 |title=Heritage Comics Auctions #815 Pini Collection Catalog |page=21 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nj02doLM968C&pg=PA21 |publisher=Ivy Press |isbn=978-1-932899-50-4 }} By January 1979, it had sold out its first printing of 180,000 copies.

Considered a fantasy classic,{{cite book |first=Sarah M. |last=Pike |author-link=Sarah M. Pike |chapter=Selling Infinite Selves: Youth Culture and Contemporary Festivals |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ptd4BgAAQBAJ&pg=PT188 |editor1-first=Jan |editor1-last=Stievermann |editor2-first=Philip |editor2-last=Goff |editor3-first=Detlef |editor3-last=Junker |title=Religion and the Marketplace in the United States |date=2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-026657-8 |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199361793.003.0009 |pages=191–214}} Faeries had sold in excess of five million copies by 2003.{{cite web |first=Michael |last=Kiefer |date=6 May 2003 |title=Magical tide washes Faeryland onto red rocks of Sedona |newspaper=Arizona Republic |location=Phoenix, Arizona |page=E2 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57740812/magical-tide-washes-faeryland-onto-red/ |via=Newspapers.com |url-access=limited |access-date=21 August 2020 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20200821011652/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57740812/magical-tide-washes-faeryland-onto-red/ |archive-date=21 August 2020 |url-status=live |id={{ProQuest|238308265}} }} A 25th-anniversary edition of Faeries was published in 2002, containing eight new pages and 20 new pieces of art by Froud and Lee, as well as new introductions by the artists. The anniversary edition sold more than 100,000 copies within six months of release. The "Deluxe Collector's Edition" published in 2010 includes an additional eight new pieces of art by Froud and Lee as well as essays by the artists and a foreword by Jane Yolen.{{cite web |first1=Ed |last1=Justus |first2=Cynthia |last2=Justus |date=2 March 2018 |title=Do you believe in 'Faeries'? |website=The Garden Island |location=Lihue, Hawaii |url=https://www.thegardenisland.com/2018/03/02/entertainment/do-you-believe-in-faeries/ |access-date=3 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180302204426/https://www.thegardenisland.com/2018/03/02/entertainment/do-you-believe-in-faeries/ |archive-date=2 March 2018 |url-status=live}}

The New York Times Book Review wrote that Faeries, as Gnomes did, "rescued the little people from their roles as stereotyped characters in children's books".{{cite magazine |date=1979 |title=New York Times Saturday Review of Books and Art |magazine=The New York Times Book Review |volume=2 |page=L |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eqMPAQAAMAAJ }} Describing the book as a "Baedeker of Faerieland", Stephen Hunter of The Baltimore Sun wrote, "What Froud and Lee have done is to explore the arcana of English, Celtic and Welsh folklore, but to reinterpret in wholly a revisionist way, without sentimentality, without cuteness: Gnomes with fangs. The style is soft and evocative, the colours pale, suggesting the dreamed, the felt, rather than the observed."{{cite news |first=Stephen |last=Hunter |date=10 December 1978 |title=Books of wonder, books of light... |newspaper=The Baltimore Sun |location=Baltimore, Maryland |page=D5 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57624224/faeries-by-brian-froud-and-alan-lee/ |via=Newspapers.com |url-access=limited |access-date=19 August 2020 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20200819020003/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57624224/faeries-by-brian-froud-and-alan-lee/ |archive-date=19 August 2020 |url-status=live }} A review in The Atlantic Monthly praised Faeries as a "pretty book" with "lavish, colorful illustrations", but found its text lacked the "sly satire that distinguished Gnomes."{{cite magazine |date=December 1978 |title=Faeries |magazine=The Atlantic Monthly |location=Boston, U.S. |volume=242 |issue=6 |page=97 |id={{ProQuest|204093881}} }}

New York Times reviewer Helen Bevington praised the tales as "fascinating" and illustrations as "both beautiful and grotesque", but held the criticism that the text did not clearly distinguish fact from fancy.{{cite news |first=Helen |last=Bevington |date=3 December 1978 |title=Strange Hauntings |department=Book Review |page=3 |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/12/03/archives/strange-hauntings-faeries.html |access-date=28 September 2020}} This criticism was shared by M. L. del Mastro in Library Journal, who wrote that although "curious lore and visual appeal make the book a nice portfolio", "Faeries suffers from three defects. The text follow no discernable plan. The authors have neglected to establish a point of view: jumbling the scholar's "it is believed" with the believer's "it is" and the satirist's implied "it ought to be" they have not taken their subject seriously, and have left fairies neither mythic, magic, nor figmentary".{{cite journal |first=del Mastro |last=M. L. |date=1 January 1979 |title= Faeries |journal=Library Journal |volume=104 |issue=1 |page=123 |id={{EBSCOhost|5794266}}}}

Faeries won second place in the 1979 Locus Award for Best Art Book{{cite web |title= Locus Awards 1979 |website=Science Fiction Awards Database |publisher=Locus Science Fiction Foundation |url=http://www.sfadb.com/Locus_Awards_1979 |access-date=10 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190820085035/http://www.sfadb.com/Locus_Awards_1979 |archive-date=20 August 2019 |url-status=live }} and was nominated for the 1979 Balrog Award for Best Professional Publication.{{cite web |title= Balrog Awards 1979 |website=Science Fiction Awards Database |publisher=Locus Science Fiction Foundation |url=http://www.sfadb.com/Balrog_Awards_1979 |access-date=12 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190804044811/http://www.sfadb.com/Balrog_Awards_1979 |archive-date=4 August 2019 |url-status=live }}

• German
• Das große Buch der Geister von Elfen, Nixen, Gnomen, Irrwischen und anderen geheimnisvollen Wesen (The Great Book of Spirits of Elves, Nymphs, Gnomes, Wisps and Other Mysterious Beings) (1979 hardcover) by Oldenburg: Stalling, {{isbn|978-3-7979-1677-8}}
• Von Elfen, Goblins, Spukgestalten: Ein Handbuch der anderen Welt, nach alten Quellen erschlossen und aufgezeichnet (Of Elves, Goblins, Ghostly Figures: A Handbook of the Other World, developed and recorded from ancient sources) (1996 hardcover) by Hildesheim: Gebrüder, {{isbn|978-3-8067-2895-8}}
• Dutch — De elfen (1979 hardcover) by Bussum: Van Holkema & Warendorf, {{isbn|978-90-269-4809-1}}
• French — Les Fées (1979 hardcover) by Paris: Albin Michel {{isbn|978-2-226-00846-6}}
• Japanese — {{langx|ja|フェアリー /|translit=Fearī}} (1980) by Tōkyō: Sanrio {{OCLC|673886269}}
• Serbo-Croatian — Vile i vilenjaci (1980 hardcover) by Beograd: Jugoslavija; Rijeka: Otokar Keršovani {{OCLC|439164170}}
• Spanish — Hadas (1985 paperback) by Madrid: Ediciones Montena {{isbn|978-84-7515-329-2}}
• Italian — Fate (1987 hardcover) by Milan: Rizzoli, {{isbn|978-88-17-64104-3}}
• Portuguese — Fadas by (1992 paperback) by São Paulo: Siciliano {{isbn|978-85-267-0504-3}}
• Greek — {{Langx|el|Νεράιδες|translit=Neráides}} (2009 paperback) by {{Langx|el|Φανταστικός Κόσμος|translit=Fantastikós Kósmos}} {{isbn|978-960-6868-09-2}}

In 1980, a 12-page pop-up version for children was published as The Faeries Pop-up Book{{cite book |date=1980 |title=The Junior Bookshelf, Volume 44 |publisher=Marsh Hall |page=214 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7JAeAQAAMAAJ }} by Abrams in the U.S.{{cite book |first1=Brian |last1=Froud |author1-link=Brian Froud |first2=Alan |last2=Lee |author2-link=Alan Lee (illustrator) |date=1 June 1980 |title=The Faeries Pop-up Book |publisher=Harry N. Abrams, Inc. |location=New York |isbn=978-0-8109-0910-6}} and Kestral Books in the U.K.{{cite book |first1=Brian |last1=Froud |author1-link=Brian Froud |first2=Alan |last2=Lee |author2-link=Alan Lee (illustrator) |date=2 October 1980 |title=The Faeries Pop-up Book |publisher=Kestral Books |location=London |isbn=978-0-7226-5705-8}}

Faeries was the basis of a 1981 animated special of the same name directed by Lee Mishkin that appeared on CBS in the United States. Henson Associates were the merchandising agents for Faeries.{{cite news |first=Gene |last=Lambinus |date=22 February 1981 |title=Television Week |newspaper=The New York Times |page=GU3 |id={{ProQuest|121868770}} }}

Froud followed Faeries with several art books, including Good Faeries/Bad Faeries (1998) and Brian Froud's Faeries' Tales (2014).{{cite journal |first=Kathleen |last=McWilliams |date=9 October 2014 |title=Fantasty artists present faerie anthology |journal=The Daily Campus |publisher=University of Connecticut via University Wire |location=Carlsbad |id={{ProQuest|1651888999}} }}

{{Portal |Literature |Painting}}

• Fairy painting

{{Reflist}}

• [https://openlibrary.org/books/OL4745158M/Faeries Faeries] at the Open Library
• {{LibraryThing work|id=6855|name=Faeries}}
• [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?25755 Faeries] at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

{{Authority control}}

Category:Fantasy books

Category:1978 books

Category:Abrams Books books

Category:Souvenir Press books

Category:Children's books adapted into films

Category:Fairies in art

Category:Books about fairies