1980*1st* Lady Filmy Fern (Or The Voyage Of The Window Box) Thomas Hennell (Edward Bawden Illust) Hamish Hamilton

1980*1st* Lady Filmy Fern (Or The Voyage Of The Window Box) Thomas Hennell (Edward Bawden Illust) Hamish Hamilton. Hardback unclipped very collectible. 

The volume features a colour-illustrated title page, complemented by eighteen additional full-page colour plates and a single monochrome illustration, totaling [42] pages in oblong format. Bound in original pale purple boards with a front cover depicting the Polypod photographer at sea, the dustjacket mirrors this charming illustration. Condition: near fine, with only minimal spotting.

This enchanting work has a remarkable genesis. Born from an evening game of consequences played by Edward Bawden, his wife Charlotte Epton, Eric Ravilious, his wife Tirzah, and Gwyneth Lloyd Thomas (an English scholar at Girton, Cambridge) during convivial lamplight gatherings at Bawden's Brick House. Tom Hennell transcribed and refined their collaborative tale, while Bawden created the accompanying illustrations. After facing an initial publisher's rejection, the manuscript was sealed in a scrapbook and lowered into a garden well for wartime safekeeping—a solution that ensured security if not ideal preservation. The work lay forgotten until 1979, when preparations for a Bawden retrospective brought it back to light, leading to this first publication.

The narrative itself offers a spirited adventure spanning continents and oceans, featuring elephants, the famed Indian rope trick, and a journey through the Suez Canal—essential reading for devotees of bell-jar curiosities.