The beginning of the world : twenty-five pictures / by Edward Burne-Jones

Preface by Georgiana Burne-Jones.

The printer is named on the colophon: `Chiswick Press : Charles Whittingham and Co., Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London.'

Text from the first chapters of Genesis.

"The designs in this book were made for an illustrated edition of Mr. Mackail's 'Biblia Innocentium' which was to have been produced by the Kelmscott Press and to have contained upwards of two hundred pictures. Many of these were begun, but none quite finished. The twenty-five designs here given were so far carried out that, with the help of Mr. Catterson-Smith, it has been possible to complete and reproduce them. It was he who, under my husband’s own eye, translated almost all the designs for the Kelmscott Chaucer from pencil into ink before they were engraved, and in so doing he learnt most intimately the manner and meaning of the artist. Accordingly, the conventions agreed upon for certain parts of the Chaucer drawings – as in the sky, trees, and flowers – have been used here, and the colour tradition of black and white then taught has been followed. Where the pictures were finished, they have been exactly reproduced, and where, as in some parts, little more than a suggestion was given, the skill and sympathy of the pupil have understood it and made it visible to others. Any resulting incompletion of form and detail has been accepted as inevitable, but the spirit of the whole is rendered with extraordinary fidelity.’ -- introduction by Georgina Burne-Jones, p. 3.