4to. in 6 volumes edited by Thomas Wise. White cloth with pictorial gilt Art Nouveau decoration on covers. Gilt and red lettering on spine and red Art Nouveau decoration on back board. Limited to 1000 copies on hand made paper; t.e.g. Original wrappers bound in. Usual foxing to end papers. Bookplate on front paste down of volume 1 of Robert and Gladys Koch, he preeminent turn-of-the-20th-century art historian and she prominent antiques dealer. Walter Crane was one of the most influential artists working around 1900. Engaged in a variety of artistic endeavors, Crane was an important and prolific book illustrator who also produced significant scholarship on this craft. He achieved world wide recognition for his artistic brilliance that can be traced to Blake and the Pre-Raphaelites like Rossetti. In Crane's Faerie Queene, one can see not only these influences but those of the Arts and Crafts movement of William Morris as well as the Art Nouveau phenomenon then sweeping the modern world. The Faerie Queene is Crane's book illustration masterpiece.