Quarto. 40pp, [2], 8pp. Lithographed throughout, with numerous in-text illustrations and a terminal catalogue of publisher's advertisements. Original publisher's cloth-backed pictorial boards, with glassine wrapper. A trifle rubbed and bumped, wrapper chipped and torn, with loss

The first edition of Flora's Feast, a whimsical picture-book of floral-inspired pixies, nymphs and fairies by English artist Walter Crane (1845-1915), among the most prolific, and considered one of the most influential, children’s book illustrators of his generation. A primary contributor to the nursery motif that the genre of children's illustrated literature would exhibit in its developmental stages during the late nineteenth-century, Crane's fanciful work still exhibited care and accuracy in its representation of the blooms depicted. The illustrator's socialist beliefs can be seen here subtly incorporated into his illustrative style, combining elements of Pre-Raphaelite and Renaissance life-drawing, Art Nouveau, the Arts and Crafts movement, and Aestheticism in deliberate protest against the stratified classification of artistic style into 'elite' and 'popular' forms.