Most people, when asked about their favorite book, will invariably include a book they read as a child. Hemingway famously proclaimed that "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn". Twain's book, like its predecessor, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, were books whose intended audience was young readers. Such books speak to us on multiple levels. As literature, they are well-crafted and clever with memorable characters and conflicts, but they matter to us for more than these reasons because we discovered them at a formative period of our lives. Their ideas helped to form our own, and so they are more personal ...
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(Germany): 1835. A dark-stained oak stick, carved with a Roman-letter alphabet in relief on one side. Two opposite sides are decorated with floral and foliate designs, and the side opposite the alphabet is carved with the name "Maria Magdalena Buder" and the year 1835. The body has a square, tapering... More
Print Club of Cleveland, 1950. Woodcut measuring 21 by 14 1/2 inches. One of 250 copies, signed and dated by Antonio Frasconi, an artist born in Uruguay and known for his distinctive woodcuts and numerous illustrated books for children. In this depiction of Aesop’s fable, a hungry, curvaceous crocodile tempts... More
Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1885. Octavo. (xii), 373pp. Illustrated throughout with black & white plates. An adventure tale of a Vermont man's shipwreck and survival on a Pacific island. Bound in illustrated light brown cloth, gilt-decorated to spine. Spine slightly cocked and some light edgewear, else about fine. More
London: H. Teape, (c. 1810). A set of 100 cards, fifty with questions and fifty with matching answers, designed to be played by a group of people. The questions concern various significant individuals and events in the history of Britain, including questions of the dispositions and moralities of certain rulers... More
Amsterdam: J. Vlieger, (c. 1890s). Folio. 1ff. Lithographic sheet game board, measuring 22 1/2 by 17 inches (571x431mm), released by Dutch board game publisher J. Vlieger. A variation of the classic Royal Game of the Goose, in which players take turns rolling dice to progress forward from space 1 to... More
Paris: Librairie Gründ, 1950. Quarto. 237pp., + 48 plates, nine of which are in color. One of 700 copies. This authoritative text and bibliography on the French “Game of the Goose” and its derivatives is illustrated throughout with images relating to the game, including many whimsical geese. The plates are... More
Nuremberg: J.W. Spear & Sohne, (n.d.). Six pictorial game boards, each with nine corresponding tiles. Each board depicts a scene from a familiar fairytale - the evil queen offering a poisoned apple to Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood meeting the Wolf, and the witch catching Hansel and Gretel eating... More
(Middle Falls, NY): Toy Works, 1980. This bean bag toy of a bat with outstretched wings measures approximately fifteen inches from wingtip to wingtip. The fabric is printed with a black and white crosshatched pattern that is shaded on the wings and body to give the figure more dimensionality, evoking... More
NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1968. Square octavo. (88)pp. First edition. Inscribed by the author/illustrator, Hardie Gramatky, on the title page, with an ink drawing of Little Toot. Third in the series of children's books that started with 1939's Little Toot, Little Toot on the Grand Canal tells the story of... More
NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1973. Square octavo. (88)pp. First edition. Inscribed by the author/illustrator, Hardie Gramatky, on the title page, with an ink drawing of Little Toot. Fourth in the series of children's books that started with 1939's Little Toot, Little Toot on the Mississippi tells the story of the... More
A collection of sixteen vibrant watercolor designs by Vernon Grant for an apparently unpublished children's book called "The Two Elves." Grant was one of the most popular illustrators of the mid-20th century, and his distinctive whimsical style influenced many of his contemporaries, including Walt Disney. Grant is perhaps best known... More
London: Routledge, 1882-1895, 1897. Fourteen 24mo. volumes. All in first issue bindings with the following exceptions: 1884 is the fifth variant; 1886 is the third variant; 1888 is the seventh variant; 1893 is the second variant. Each volume is illustrated throughout with full-color images by Greenaway, many of which are... More
London: Max Parrish, 1953. Small quarto. (36)pp. First edition. Publisher’s production file copy, as noted in ink on the front endpaper and the upper front panel of the dust wrapper. At the top of each page, the color register is written out with a double set of check marks. The... More
Bern & Biel, Switzerland: Ernst Kuhn, 1920. Square 16mo. (45)ff., printed on rectos only. First issue. A striking picture book in the Swiss dialect, illustrated with forty-two brightly colored full-page woodcuts by Erna Haas in the style of the Wiener Werkstätte. The scenes depicted in the woodcuts are charming and... More
London: Dean & Son, (c. 1910). Tall quarto. 12ff. First edition. Illustrated throughout in color and black & white by Gladys Hall and Eugenie Richards. A series of poems that follow the activities of the cherubic Peggy and Teddy. The artwork by Hall and Richards is dramatically similar to that... More
London: Laurie & Whittle, 1807. 1ff. Framed engraved writing sheet with a mirror over the blank area in the center usually reserved for examples of penmanship. The mirror is near-contemporary to the writing sheet, and together they create an attractive piece that perhaps could have served as decoration in a.... More
Boston: Ticknor, Reed, & Fields, 1852. Octavo. vi, (7), 256pp. First edition. First issue, with “lifed” for “lifted” on page 21, line 3. Illustrated with a frontispiece and six plates after designs by Hammat Billings. Hawthorne’s groundbreaking attempt to retell Greek myths in a style suitable for children met with... More
Akron, OH: Saalfield Publishing Co., 1973. Five pages of original artwork, individually framed, with the published booklet. These sheets offer a unique look at the pre-publication stage of the making of paper dolls. Published by Saalfield, which operated from 1899 to 1977 and was at one time one of the... More
c. 1964. Four sheets, three of which measure 8 1/2 by 11 inches; the single sheet of text is smaller, measuring 8 by 6 inches, and is on blue paper. The pages reveal the unfolding of Gorey's creative process in developing the story and preliminary illustrations for his book, The... More
1935-1938. Six original paintings, all signed by the artist. This set of paintings vividly depicts six different puppets, each with caricatured features reminiscent of the traditional style of Punch and Judy: rosy cheeks, mitten-hands, and large eyes and mouths. The six images display a nurse with an infant, a jester... More
Portland, ME: Bailey & Noyes, n.d. 64mo. 16pp. A moral tale of two orphaned children and the retribution of their wicked uncle, with six woodcut illustrations. The images show a depth of detail, with particular care applied to the leaves on the trees and the feathers on an angel's wings... More
London: Wallis, 1801. Complete set of ten 48mo. volumes held in a wooden box designed to resemble a bookcase. 64; 32; 64; 64; 64; 32, 32; (64); 64; 62, ii; 64pp. Nine volumes bear engraved frontispieces. The volumes on natural history, geography and astronomy, and botany all contain engraved plates... More
![Child's First Animal - Bird - Rhyme Book [cover title].](/pictures/thumb/27700.jpg?v=1512599742)
Newark / NY: Charles E. Graham & Co., (c. 1900). Quarto. (40)pp. Illustrated with sixteen bright full-page chromolithographed plates, including a magnificent two-page spread showing a yoke of oxen, plus another twenty-two pages of black & white illustrations. The book is divided into three sections: "Animal Pictures," "Our Bird Friends,"... More
(Sandbornton, NH): Sandbornton Press, 1835. 48mo. 16pp. Eleven woodcut illustrations of animals, accompanying descriptions of each. The animals presented include a monkey, spaniel, and walrus. Each description provides information on the animal's physical characteristics and behavioral habits. Some, as in the case of the ass, add mentions of the animal's... More
Otley, UK: Renwick, (c. 1940). Small octavo. (12)pp. A children's book with twelve illustrations, six of which are in full color, that depict scenes from the circus, including acrobats, clowns, and a variety of animals. With original artwork on separate sheets for all twelve images, including additional color overlays for... More
