A first edition set in four volumes of A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales, Katharine Mary Briggs’s masterwork and the definitive reference for British folk narratives and folk legends in the English Language, incorporating the F.J. Norton Collection. Part A in two volumes is devoted to Folk Narratives, and Part B in two volumes is devoted to Folk Legends. 

These were the personal copies of her friend and colleague, folklorist Venetia Newall. Each volume is individually inscribed to Newall, with the final volume reading “To Venetia Newall in gratitude for her inestimable services to the Folklore Society and with admiration for the scholarship and immense industry displayed in her own work from Katharine Briggs with love April 30th 1971”. Newall clearly used the bibliographies at the beginning of Part A and Part B as references, many of the titles are ticked in pencil and there are two small corrections in ink.

After receiving her PhD in English History with a thesis on 17th century folklore, and serving during WWII as a teacher in a school for Polish refugees and in a medical branch of WAAF, Briggs became the doyen of fairyland, writing over a dozen books about fairies and folklore, including this Dictionary, which was republished in 2011 with a glowing introduction from Philip Pullman, who said it was the most comprehensive set of English folklore in existence.

London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970, 1971. Four volume set, 580, 580, 623, 774 pages. Each volume 16 x 25.5 cm. First editions. Small creases to the inside corner of dust jacket back flaps on three of the volumes. Annotations in pencil to bibliographies as noted above. Laid into the first volume is a small collection of newspaper clippings dated 1970-71, three reviews of the Dictionary from The Telegraph and one review from TLS. All books in very good condition, all dust jackets in very good condition.