The only things I can remember from the fairytale book, were that the illustrations were amazing! But I can’t seem to find it through my searching. The specific illustrations I can remember were Cinderella, where the men were made from lizards, the horse were mice, or it might have been the other way round. I think there were other animals or maybe insects used too but I can’t remember. I remember that the men kind of looked like the animals they were transformed from, and the horses too. The dress was huge and ruffled and I remember her hair was huge too, like Marie Antoinette style. And I just remember the intricate details and lots of use of colour. Also, if I remember right I think it was a silk slipper not a glass slipper.

And my favourite and most memorable was the sleeping beauty illustrations. I remember being totally fascinated with the wings of the faeries, they are the most beautiful illustrations of wings I have ever seen. The bad faerie’s wings were kind of marbled, with lots of different colours, kind of like how petrol or oil on water looks if that makes sense? Or like the marbled colours of a bubble. I also think the good faeries wings might have been marbled like that too, but with lighter or softer colours maybe?

I had this book in the early 90’s but it could possibly have been older than that. I don’t remember the book cover or what other stories were in this book. But I do believe one of the stories was called something like ‘The tramp and his nail soup’ Which was a story about a tramp who convinces some woman to let him stay at her house for the night with the promise to make the most delicious soup she’s ever tasted from this nail he has in his pocket. He ends up tricking her by saying stuff like “this would be even better if you had some carrots?” Etc until he has lots of ingredients in the soup to make it delicious. However I am slightly nervous that, that story may have been from another fairytale book, so don’t necessarily rely on that info.

The illustrations are similar in style to Edmund Dulac or Arthur Rackham, but actually I think they’re a lot better.

It could also be possible that different stories are illustrated by different artists.

I’ve been trying to find it for years to no avail. I have just had a daughter and I desperately want to get this book for her. Please, please, PLEASE help!

The book is very large in size (dimensions). It is a children’s poetry collection that a friend of mine received as a gift and read when we were kids in the late 70’s and early 80’s, although at least a few of the poems were actually written long before. All of the poems were pretty creepy, and there were ink drawn(?) illustrations.

One poem in the collection was ‘Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutscher’ (The Story of the Thumb-Sucker) by Heinrich Hoffmann, although I don’t know if one of those exact titles were used in this collection. The title ‘Snip Snip’ may have been used. Apparently that poem has gone by a few similar sounding titles through the years? It was about a man in a top hat who showed up with scissors coming for a boy who sucked his thumb. Another poem in the collection was Antigonish (I Met a Man Who Wasn’t There) by Hughes Mearns, and again, I don’t know which title was actually used in this collection. A line from that poem was something like “As I was walking up the stair I met a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today. I wish I wish he’d go away.” The last poem I remember from the collection was about a father who gave his daughter a bath in gasoline because she was mean. (Yikes!)

I would love to find this book and buy it for my friend. Good luck!