An exceptionally rare precursor to Sleigh's famous panoramic map of 'Faerie-land' (1917), known in only one other example, at the City of Birmingham Public Library. The current example is probably a printer's proof, annotated, possibly by Sleigh, in the top margin "to be obtained from B. Sleigh 2 Ludgate Hill, Birmingham, 5/2".

In this first version, of what would eventually become a six-foot panorama, Sleigh's "Faerie-Land" is shaped a bit like England, is surrounded by the "Sea of Dreams" and the "Enchanted Sea", and part of a world that is suspended in space beneath "Rainbow Land", which in turn is the gateway to "Moonland".

Created to accompany the bedtime stories of his young children (they were seven and three at the time), Sleigh's fabulous landscape of 'Faerie-Land' is the stuff of myth and legend, inspired by Anglo-Saxon chronicles, the tales of King Arthur, the fairy tales of Grimm, Perrault's 'Mother Goose', and 'Peter Pan', with a smattering of Norse saga, and a nod to Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. It is peopled by "small folk": elves, pixies, gnomes, faeries. And by altogether much larger and scarier ones: ghosts, worms, witches, and ogres.

Sleigh's daughter, Barbara Grace de Riemer Sleigh (1906–1982), the author of the famous 'Carbonel' series of children's books, recalled in her memoir, 'The Smell of Privet' (1971): "One wet holiday my father drew a 'Map of Faeryland' for us. On it were marked the sites of all our best-loved fairy-stories. There is Peter Pan's House, and the palace of La Belle Dormante and the Bridge of Roc's Eggs, and such succinct entries as 'Here be bogles' and 'Warlocks live here'. It has fascinated several generations of children".

The Mapmaker
Bernard Sleigh (1872-1954) was influenced by the work of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. He trained at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, and lived and worked in Birmingham for most of his life. He was a prolific illustrator of books of fairy tales, myths and legends, poetry and prose. He taught at the Birmingham School of Art, wrote and illustrated several works on wood-engraving, and created designs for murals and stained-glass windows. However, he is best remembered for his 'An anciente mappe of Fairyland: newly discovered and set forth' (1917).