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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NY: Century Co., (c. 1933). Octavo. (x), 246pp. Copiously illustrated by Palmer Cox. This was the first adventure of the Brownies written in prose, and it is advertised as having "a detailed, connected story, with a beginning, a middle and an end." A later issue, with the text, binding, and...
NY: Lindner, Eddy & Clauss, (n.d.). 32mo. (12)pp. Full-page engravings throughout. Each illustrates a different customer of Clark's O.N.T. spool cotton, including the royal family, Native Americans, witches, and sailors. These are expounded upon by a four-line rhyming poem advertising the use of O.N.T. In pictorial paper wrappers. Fine.....
Paris: Nouvelle Librairie de la Jeunesse, (1890). Small quarto. (14)pp., including paste-down endpapers. A stencil-colored cut-figure book, with each page cut into three sections so that one can make numerous combinations of the head, body, and legs of "Mon Oncle Gaspard." The Gaspards range in profession and character, from a....
(Akron, OH): John Davey, 1905. Octavo. 165pp. Inscribed by the author to Richard Mickey and dated October 14th, 1916. The inscription reads, "From every tree and plant & flower / We learn of Wisdom, skill & power, / And from the starry host above / We hear the voice that...
London: Dean and Son / W. Kent & Co., (c. 1860). Octavo. Three volumes in one. (24); 30; (32)pp. A collection of three illustrated children's books published together by Dean and Son under the name Dean's Coloured Picture Book: The Home First Book. The titles herein are "The Nursery ABC...
Ashland, OR: Jubilation Press, (2010). Square octavo. (15)ff., accordion-fold. One of 100 copies. This brightly-colored abecedarium is a celebration of boys' creative, youthful spirits. Each letter is illustrated and surrounded by phrases and words beginning with that letter. For example, the letter "I" shows a child ice skating with his...
Paris: Typographie de Firmin Didot, (c. 1810). 125pp., + (8)ff. Eight engravings on beige paper. The absurd adventures of Pierrot, born from a turkey's egg to La Fee Gourmande, and dedicated to gourmandise from that moment on, until his gluttony proves too much and dooms him. An extremely rare cautionary...
NY: Shackman, 1967. An uncut rectangle of cloth printed with three replicas of large, antique doll patterns, measuring 18 by 24 inches. The dolls are elaborately costumed in fancy nineteenth-century dresses with puffed sleeves and full skirts: one wears a dress with a tiered skirt trimmed with lace, a lace...
London: Pollock's Rag Toys, 1967. Two hand-printed pieces of cloth with uncut patterns for very large rag dolls, measuring 22 by 25 inches. The costume styles date from the early nineteenth century. The first pattern, Little Lizzie, is a young girl dressed in a Regency-style empire dress in a blue...
NY: E. P. Dutton and Company, (c. 1870's). 16mo. (62)pp., including illustrations and advertisements. Part of the "Our Boy's Little Library" series. Copiously illustrated with nearly forty black & white engravings and sixteen three-line initials. Artists include noted English engravers Kate Greenaway, Robert Paterson, William Luson Thomas, and George Pearson...
Hamburg: Frederic Perthes, (c. 1833). Octavo. vi, (104), 32pp. French translation of German fables by Wilhelm Hey, printed on rectos only and accompanied by charming wood engravings by Otto Speckter. According to Hobbs, these fables “were originally devised not for publication but to cheer up [the author’s] children, sick with.....
(Moscow: 1929). Six pen-and-ink drawings colored with watercolor, with an expressionistic look, each measuring 7 3/4 by 6 1/2 inches. These delicate, stylized illustrations are tinted with shades of orange, purple, and green. The first drawing has the title and illustrator’s name, Ausbrey, below it in Russian. The images recount...
(N.P. Interprint, late 20th century). Quarto. 23pp. One of 300 copies designed by Sarah Janson. This book is dedicated to Nina Vaughan, who died in 1970 at the age of 25, shortly after completing the image around which the story is based. The fantastical picture and the accompanying story, "represents...
NY: Merrimack Publishing Corporation, (c. 1974). (30)ff. The book follows a goat climbing up and down a ladder. It is one of a series of five similar publications produced by the Merrimack Publishing Corporation, each depicting a different action. Rear publication information states that the volume was printed in Hong...
(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...
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...
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.
Kansas: 1898-1899. Oblong octavo. (19)ff. A double accordion-fold album of thirty-one woven paper designs in brown and coral. Included in this group are two weavings with movable elements, and one in the form of a frame with an image in the center. These examples of a popular kindergarten activity were...
Paris: Chez tous les libraires, (c. 1841). Duodecimo. 40pp., + twenty-panel leporello. Beginning with Charlemagne and closing with Napoleon, the folding tableau contains lithographed portraits of the kings of France, as well as illustrated scenes depicting historically significant events that occurred during their reign. The text in the accompanying booklet...
Japan: (c. 1910). 5 loose leaves + 1 adhered to upper lid of box + 6 six-sided blocks. Each leaf bears a chromolithographed image, which is meant to guide the user as they turn over the blocks and piece them together. The images feature both European and stereotypical Asian scenes...
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...
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...
London: Golden Cockerel Press, 1961. Quarto. 147pp. One of 500 copies. The illustrations by Carlile "are in the traditional eighteenth century style of Bengal, sharp white lines on a black background, overprinted in brown." Bound in gilt-stamped brown cloth. Faint toning to top of upper cover, minimal rubbing to corners...
Reading, MA: Young Scott Books, 1971. First edition thus. Signed by Gorey on the title-page. With Gorey's large color illustrations surrounding Ennis Rees' whimsical poetic interpretations of Aesop. Near fine in orange pictorial boards and matching very good dust wrapper. (Toledano B47a).
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963. First edition. Illustrated by Pat Marriott, with jacket design by Gorey. Bound in red cloth over boards with black wolf stamped to upper cover. General mild edgewear, else very good in very good price-clipped dust wrapper. (Toledano D-Aiken).
