Lady Cottington's Fairy Album

At last, Lady Angelica Cottington returns, in this mysterious and hilarious sequel to Brian Froud's huge international hit Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book. In this quirky and seductive new volume, 15-year-old Angelica stumbles on an annotated photo album belonging to her long-dead sister, Euphemia. The revelations within tell of fairy enchantments, wanton romance, and bawdy trysts-and they cast young Lady C's ancestry into shocking doubt. Angelica responds to the album in true character, and her fits of fairy pressings and squashings instigate terrible (if weirdly entertaining) consequences.

Along with its mysterious tale of Cottington family deviance, this extraordinary artifact offers near-indisputable evidence of the existence of fairies in the form of letters and never-before-published Victorian photographs of actual fairies, authenticated by Brian Froud, the Cottington Archive, and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Fairies. Fairies defiant, fairies au naturel, and, of course, fairies squashed: they're all here. Without doubt, Lady Cottington's Fairy Album will radically alter the study of the fairies' heretofore-secret world.

The central narrative, told through diary entries of the mysterious Euphemia Cottington, whom Angelica has never met, is wonderful, but I feel Angelica's hastily-scrawled commentary to Euphemia's entries detracted from the story a bit, as they lacked the humourous fluster of the Pressed Fairy Book. the art is brilliant, and i rather like the phtographs and things inserted between the pages and the little envelope stuck to a page (via a squished fairy) at the end, although it took a moment of careful tugging to determine whether or not it's meant to come off so you can read the back as you can with the photograph (it's meant to stay affixed to the page, btw).

If you're the sort who likes to get every book in a series or just a fan of Froud's non-comedic fantasy art, I highly reccomend this book. If you're looking for some Terry-Jonesian comedy to go with your fantasy, however, you might prefer "The Goblin Companion"


A Must Have!   February 13, 2003
Shelley D. Brook (Home of the 95, 2000 & 03 Stanley Cup Champions!)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

I really liked this book. I'm so glad that Brian Froud continued on with the Cottington story. When I first heard about Brian Froud back in the early 90's, it was very difficult to find Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy's in stock. I had to order it from England. The art is so original, I have just about all of Froud's books. I'm alittle disappointed though that this artist has become mainstream (i.e. Hot Topic). Froud did not disappoint his fans with Lady Cottington's Fairy Album. The storyline was interesting and still original. You have to get this book if you got the first.