Dream Days

A sequel to the 1895 collection The Golden Age (some of its selections feature the same family of five children), Dream Days was first published in 1898 under the imprint John Lane: The Bodley Head.

In one modern estimation, both books "paint a convincingly unsentimental picture of childhood, with the adults in these sketches totally out of touch with the real concerns of the young people around them, including their griefs and rages.

Instead Lane chose a new photogravure reproduction process that produced black-and-white results superior to the halftone images in the 1899 edition of The Golden Age.

The Parrish-illustrated edition of Dream Days was issued in London and New York by The Bodley Head in 1902; it contained ten full-page illustrations (one for each of the eight selections plus frontispiece and title page) and six tailpieces.

The quality of the images in Dream Days inspired Lane to issue a matching edition of The Golden Age, with improved photogravure plates, in 1904.