Queen Mary’s Doll House Library

Queen Mary’s Dolls House Library

Elizabeth Clark from the Royal Collection holds a miniature book made for Queen Mary’s dolls’ house.

The 171-volume library contains some short works which were authored specifically for the dollhouse. Each miniature book is about the size of a postage stamp; most are bound in leather.

One of the volumes will soon be published in human size. It is a fairy story contained within J Smith by Fougasse, the pen name of Cyril Kenneth Bird, one of the leading cartoonists of the day.

The fairy storybook measures 1.6 inches by 1.4 inch

The book tells the story of a fairy, Joe Smith, who falls out of Fairyland one stormy night and lands in London. He has a very bad time of it and returns to his friends in Fairyland, where lives happily ever after, of course.

A picture of 2 pages from that book is below. When you look at that tiny script, remember the page is the size of a postage stamp.

Click on either image to see one of Ileana Ottini’s great videos about the entire Queen Mary’s Doll’s House.