Le Veillard Qui Fait Fleurir Les Arbres Morts (The Old Man Who Made the Dead Trees Bloom); Les Contes du Vieux Japon No. 4 (Tales of Old Japan No. 4)
A rare copy (in French) of fairy tale No. 4 in Takejiro Hasegawa's Japanese Fairy Tale Series, a delightful series of books featuring wood-block prints on crepe paper that were produced in Japan at the beginning of the 20th century. The full series included 20+ volumes, and this one is the story of two old men (neighbors), one who was greedy and vindictive and experienced a terrible fate, and the other a kind man who had much better luck. The series was produced in English, French, German and Spanish although few editions in French can currently be found online. Some spellings of the folklore in French have "old man" spelled with an additional "i" in "Vieillard". Text in French.
Created for the Western market, Hasegawa's books were known for their high quality in all aspects: paper, ink, execution of the illustrations and woodblock printing, and quality of binding. Item #1551.
Condition: Very Good-, edgewear and wrinkling to cover at top right corner; creasing to pages at lower right corner and to two pages at upper right; small indentations to front and back covers, visible on some interior pages; spotting to two pages; fading to back cover; some loss to the thin/delicate paper used to cover the spine for these editions (see detail photo).
Price: $225.00