HAPPY ENGLAND As Painted by Helen Allingham With a Memoir and Descriptions by Marcus B. Huish

London: Adam and Charles Black, 1903. LIMITED DE LUXE FIRST EDITION, one of only 750 hand-numbered copies SIGNED by the illustrator, artist Helen Allingham. With portrait frontispiece of the artist from a black and white photograph and 80 beautifully produced colour plates from her paintings, each with a captioned tissue guard. 4to, large paper, very handsomely bound by Bumpus in polished, strong, mellow-red cloth. The spine with gilt ruling and gilt lettering, the upper cover blocked in gilt with double gilt fillet rules at the borders, creating a double ruled frame, lettered in gilt at the center, all edges gilt. xi, 204 pp. A very pleasing and handsome copy, some spotting to the two free-flies as is typical, otherwise the text-block and illustrations are all in bright and very fine condition, some minor cosmetic wear at the back join of the free-fly and paste-down. A very well preserved copy of this iconic work. IN THE MOST RARE OF THE BINDINGS, THE LIMITED SIGNED FIRST EDITION OF THIS SCARCE AND LOVELY WORK. The artist, who previously worked under the name Helen Mary Elizabeth Paterson,started to paint the beautiful countryside around her in watercolours after retiring from a career illustrating periodicals. She particularly loved the picturesque farmhouses and cottages of Surrey and Sussex for which she became famous. She went on to paint rural scenes in other parts of the country – Middlesex, Kent, the Isle of Wight and the West Country – and abroad in Venice, Italy. It is notable that other then a handful of paintings from Venice she never painted outside of England, never in Scotland, never in Wales. Many years of her paintings were collected into this publication, appropriately named HAPPY ENGLAND.
While Vincent Van Gogh was developing as an artist by studying English illustrated journals he was struck by her work in 'The Graphic'.