FAIRFAX-MUCKLEY, Louis. &
SPENSER, Edmund.
The Faerie Queene.
The inside front wrappers all advertise “Art Presentation Books“, commencing with Beardsley’s Le Morte Darthur, to which this elaborate but uninspired production was intended to act as a successor.
Fairfax-Muckley, 1862-1926, came from a family of artists and studied at the Birmingham School of Art, but was rather an underachiever in comparison with his uncle William Jabez Muckley (1829-1905), teacher and artist, who exhibited five pictures at the Royal Academy between 1890 and 1905. In Fairfax-Muckley’s work, the more imitative medievalism of the Arts and Crafts School and the freer arts nouveau style intersect. If he is remembered at all, it is for his illustrations to The Faerie Queene and Blackmore’s Fringilla (1895): he certainly stands in contrast to Beardsley’s work.
The wrappers are printed on poor quality paper and consequently brittle and chipped, and several are separated from the block.
