Very desirable and scarce / rare. First Edition. 107 p., [11] leaves of col. plates : ill. (some col.) ; 28 cm. @250222 Exquisite tipped-in colour plates (one of the few copies that have escaped the “breakers”, who sell each of the plates!)

The White Butterfly and Other Fairy Tales… Written and illustrated by Ethel Jackson Morris Published by C.J. DeGaris Publishing House; Melbourne 1921 The Australian fairy artist Ethel Jackson Morris (1891-1985) was active in Melbourne in the early decades of the 20th century, predominantly following in the tradition of Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, to whose work her own bears a strong resemblance. Her career as an illustrator was short-lived: after marrying in 1930 she retreated from the art world. Ethel Jackson Morris’s published output appears to have been small – Among the Fairies (1909) and The White Butterfly (1921) – together with a catalogue from an exhibition of her work in Melbourne, in 1921. A real rarity, and a delightful example of Australian fairy art. Contents include: The White Butterfly; The Glass Bottle; The Magic Wood; The Red Daisy; The Three Silver Leaves; Princess May-blossom, or The Good Little Sister; Blue-Eye; and The Queen of Flowers.

Children’s stories, Australian.  |  Fairies — Juvenile fiction.  |  Fairy tales.

Presentation bookplate on fep. Some fading to cloth and acceptable foxing, only to fep and half-title. Some wear to cloth, including predictable shelf-wear to top and bottom of spine cover.

Please request more images. Very competitively priced!

(If ordered via Abebooks, will incur additional shipping charges for insurance.)

For many months a charming illustration of a fairy child and a kookaburra has graced the walls of the Library’s Cowen Gallery in the exhibition Once upon a time: a world of children’s picture book art. The decoration is based on an illustration by Victorian artist Ethel Jackson Morris (1895–1985), who published her first book at just seventeen.

Ethel Morris Jackson published her first book All among the fairies in 1909. The publication was underwritten by her father, James Jackson Morris. The family owned several properties including a successful Jersey stud at Clarendon Eyre, a well-known property in Bulleen near the Yarra River, and Morris Jackson’s childhood home, also called Clarendon Eyre, in Malvern.

Supported by her family Ethel studied painting and drawing at the National Gallery School Art School from 1910 until 1920. During this time she exhibited with the Victorian Artists’ Society alongside other notable fantasy illustrators such as Harold Gaze and Ethel Spowers. In 1915 Jackson Morris contributed decorations and an illustration to Dame Nellie Melba’s gift book of Australian Art & Literature.

1921 was a high point of Ethel’s career; she held a solo exhibition of her work at the Fine Art Society’s Gallery, Melbourne and released a gift book The White Butterfly and other fairy tales. The illustrations and stories in the book were compared with May Gibbs, ‘We fall in love as deeply with fairy-tales of Ethel Morris Jackson, as with the quaint adventures told by Miss Gibbs” (Adam McKay, Sydney Sunday Times, December 1921, p. 23). The public and critics welcomed the Australian flavor of Ethel Morris Jackson’s fairy world.

In May 1922 Morris Jackson travelled overseas. She visited Paris and in London she attended classes at the Royal Academy of Art. It may have been this period that she met her future husband, Captain John Overton, who she later married in Sydney in 1930.  Ethel settled in Sydney after her return home in 1923, and while she continued to describe herself as an artist, the record thus far remains silent on her later career.