Images from Conte de la Marguerite, written and illustrated by Beatrice Appia:
(cover)
(I love the way two scenes are illustrated on one page)
(back cover)
Beatrice Appia’s Histoire de Perlette is one of my favorite children’s books. I first saw it on BibliOdyssey and eventually tracked down a copy. (In August, Agence Eureka uploaded a full set of quality scans.) Published in 1935, a year before “Perlette,” Conte de la Marguerite features a more traditional protagonist: a humanized daisy rather than a humanized raindrop. There was also a 1939 US edition titled Tale of a Daisy. My copy is a 1959 French reprint.
Beatrice Appia (1899-1998) was born in Switzerland, and I think she’s the daughter of architect and set-designer Adolphe Appia (an interesting figure I hope to feature soon). She was married to the writer Eugene Dabit (1898-1963).
Post title: Chaucer via wikipedia: “It is thought that the name ‘daisy’ is a corruption of ‘day’s eye,’ because the whole head closes at night and opens in the morning. Chaucer called it ‘eye of the day.’
Previously:
Eskimo Grasshoppers: French Children’s Books of the 30s and 40s
Birds, Berets, and Butterflies: French Children’s Books 1900 to 1949
Mimpish Squinnies
