Happy Holidays by Frances G. Wickes. Illustrated by Gertrude Kay. Published in 1921 by Rand McNally (First Edition!) Measures 7 in. X 5 in., 353 pages.

This is a very rare and very unique vintage children's book! Written by Frances G. Wickes (1875-1967), an American psychologist and writer, Happy Holidays is a collection of stories, folklore, and poems for 17 American holidays. This interesting collection of stories is illustrated with small black and white drawings by the renowned Gertrude Kay. 

Kay (1884-1939) was an American children's literature illustrator and author best known for her work in fairy tales and beginner novels. She was active during America's Golden Age of Illustration. During her time as an illustrator, Gertrude Kay published numerous children's books and contributed dozens of illustrations to publications like Ladies Home Journal and McCall's. In addition to her work in literature, Gertrude was also known for her illustrated paper dolls and magazine covers. The majority of her work was completed with gouache paints, though she also worked with ink. Her illustrations were highly regarded for their accurate portrayals of children and childhood.

A graduate of Columbia University, Frances Wickes was a teacher, writer and playwright for children and teenagers in New York but later became interested in becoming a Jungian therapist, especially for artists, and visited Zurich several times after meeting Carl Jung in 1920s, with whom Wickes maintained a correspondence. Wickes kept a diary of dreams and made conferences, especially at the Analytical Psychology Club of New York. Wickes had a husband, Thomas Wickes (divorced in 1910 and died about 1947) and a son, Eliphalet Wickes (1906–1926). Wickes lived also in California and Alaska.

Jung wrote the preface to her second book on the psychological world of children (1927), where Wickes supported the autonomous presence of the child in the collective unconscious, according to the idea of a participation mystique, which Lucien Lévy-Bruhl in 1910 had theorized to exist within primitive societies, Wickes's comparing a child to an individual in training and giving more place to intuition and feeling than attention to the real or rational. The book was translated into German, French, Dutch, Italian and Greek. In coming decades Wickes helped found Spring, which bills itself as the oldest Jungian journal, and lectured at various branches of the Jung Institutes.

Among Wickes's correspondents are preserved letters to Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980), Henry Murray, Eudora Welty, Mary Louise Peebles (1833–1915), Martha Graham, Lewis Mumford, Thomas Mann, May Sarton, Robert Edmond Jones (1887–1954) and William McGuire (1917–2009). At death without heirs $1–1/2 million of her $2-million estate was given to the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco and the rest to the Frances G. Wickes Foundation (1955–1974).

This is such a unique little book and would make a wonderful addition to any collection of antique books. It is in remarkable condition give that it is over 100 years old!

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