Lady Cottingham’s Fairy Album, by Brian Froud (Harry N. Abrams, 2002)

From the master of faeries himself, Brian Froud, comes a follow-up to one of his best-loved works, Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy Book. In this volume, Froud reveals more findings from the eccentric, renowned Victorian Cottington family. This time, he focuses on the work of Euphemia, who kept a diary of her encounters and fascination with the secret world of the fairies. This album contains never-before-seen insights into a magical, fantastical world, filled with commentary and photos of the elusive fairies. Unfortunately for artistic sensibilities, but invaluable to future researchers, Euphenia’s better-known sister, Angelica, got her hands on the album, and “pressed” a few fairies into it, leaving behind the imprints of some very surprised, and very flattened, magical beings. The end result is a volume filled with the distinctively whimsical, often beautiful painted art of Brian Froud. No one else captures the world of the unknown quite like he does. His fairies are unique, colorful, capricious, filled with life (or flattened and pressed), and in some cases, so ugly as to be cute. While all I saw was a preview excerpt of the real book, I’m confidant that Lady Cottington’s Fairy Album will be sure to please and amuse. For more information on Froud, best known for his conceptual work on movies Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, among others, go to www.worldoffroud.com.


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