Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales.

The first English compilation of Ukrainian fairy tales, translated from the collections published by Kulish, Rudchenko and Dragomanov.

Robert Nisbet Bain worked for the British Museum and spoke over twenty languages. He writes in the foreword for this work that the Ukrainian language 'though rigourously repressed by the Russian government, it is still spoken by more than twenty millions of peoples. It possesses a noble literature, numerous folk songs [...] and what chiefly concerns us now, a copious collection of justly admired folk tales, many of them of great antiquity, which are regarded as quite unique.

This copy belonged to Ruth Manning-Sanders (1886-1988) who wrote over 90 children's books and collected fairy tales and fables from around the world.

First edition, 8vo (22.8 x 15 cm); engraved frontispiece and full page illustrations by E. W. Mitchell, some scattered foxing, more so to title page, top edge gilt; publisher's green cloth decorated in brown, spine decorated in gilt, spine a little browned, a very good copy.