When I learned that Folio Society had released a complete collection of her books in matching cloth bound covers with screenprinted gilt detailing and re-mastered artwork I was immediately in love. This gives her work a grounding in reality that really balances the whimsy of her work and makes the fairies feel more real and captivating. Even the fairies themselves were modeled off of children Barker knew. All of the plants in her books are drawn from life she'd even get clippings of different flowers and plants that were hard to source from other gardeners so that she could always from from real life. One of the things that I feel has made her work so enduring is her dedication to re-creating nature. Her first fairy book was printed almost a century ago in 1923 and it's incredible that it's still so popular and beloved now. I came across her work again as an adult and even wrote a few Patreon posts on her work because she's so inspiring. I was first introduced to Cicely Mary Barker's Flower Fairies when I was a child I loved fairies and my parents would buy me fairy books and little figurines-Cicely Mary Barker's fairies in particular were always some of my favorites.
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