Wind Willows Frontispiece Graham Robertson by Grahame Kenneth (4 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Good+. Dust Jacket Condition: No dustwrapper. 1st edn, 1st impress. Original blue cloth decorated in gilt. The blue is unfaded, the gilt slightly dull. Top edges gilt. With the original endpapers. The rear endpaper is completely uncracked at gutter, the front endpaper has a 1/2 cm crack at top. The front hinge is very slightly slack, the rear hinge firm. Endpages very slightly browned. Mild wear to spine edges and corners. Spine very slightly cocked. Spot to p.40 reflected on p.41. A little foxing to title-page, carrying over to frontis. and its guard. W.H.Smith & Sons Library bookplate to inside front board, stamped 'SOLD'. No other ownership marks - no stamps, no traces of any sticker to spine or boards. Very well-preserved given the provenance. Maybe it was sold before it had circulated much, capitalising on its status as a first edition. As Linda Griffiths pointed out in her thesis on the Smith library enterprise, library managers were encouraged to induce subscribers to purchase copies of books they had borrowed, order forms being inserted into the library books to this end. Robust packaging. Tracking can be added to overseas orders on request. Size: vi,304pp.

8vo., Second Edition, on laid paper, with frontispiece (original tissue guard present), neat signature on front paste-down, front free endpaper lightly browned, some light and occasional marginal browning; original dark blue cloth, upper board and backstrip elaborately blocked and lettered in gilt, gilt top, uncut, joints minimally rubbed else a very good, bright, clean, crisp copy. Published in the same month as the first edition. The delightful period binding is crisp, clean and unmarked. SCARCE IN THIS CONDITION.

Seventh edition. 8vo. (vi), 302, (2) pp. Recent dark blue half morocco over matching cloth sides, top edge gilt, the original cloth spine and upper cover bound in on a leaf to the rear. Frontispiece. Occasional spotting, mostly marginal, very good overall. The first four editions were published in 1908 and 1909, the intervening editions appearing in 1910 and 1912.

Condition: Near fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near fine. Graham Robertson (illustrator). First Edition. 8vo. 7 1/2 x 4 3/4 in. (190 x 120 mm). pp. [1] + viii + 302 + i. Laid paper, deckle edges, t.e.g. With a captioned frontispieces, "And a River went out of Eden", on coated paper after a pen-and-ink drawing by Walford Graham Robertson (1866 1948); tissue guard. Original blue-green cloth with gilt illustration on the spine (Toad dressed in a driving outfit and goggles) and upper cover ( Pan playing flute to Rat and Mole by the river) and a single gilt rule on the upper cover. In the second issue publisher's pictorial peach-color dust jacket printed in black with price of 7/6 instead of 6/-.The spine of the dust jacket slightly darkened but in excellent condition with a couple small tears at head expertly repaired on verso; scattered foxing and discoloration to dust jacket and pages, wear to spine edges consistent with age. [Grolier: One Hundred Books Famous in Children's Literature, no.61; Osborne I, p. 349; Hunt p. 45 & 66; Hahn, D. Oxford Companion to Children's Literature, p. 241-242]. This is the FIRST EDITION with the SCARCE DUST JACKET of one of the essential classics of children's literature. The book is based on bedtime stories that the Scottish-born banker and author Kenneth Grahame (1859 1932) told his young son Alistair, who was sickly and nicknamed "Mouse". The stories began when Alistair was 4 and continued in a series of letters that the father wrote to his son while traveling. When Grahame retired as the Secretary of the Bank of England in 1908 due to ill health. «.Aware of the potential for a fuller treatment Grahame took the letters, which deal with Mr. Toad's adventures escaping from prison and conclude with his return to the society of Ratty, Mole and Badger and the battle for Toad Hall, and converted them into the finished work. What emerged was no lighthearted story about a countryside community of animals but a long and ramifying fable. » The book was bulky and had no illustrations, so the London publisher, Algernon Methuen, put it on his adult rather than juvenile list, stirring confusion and arguments among the readers and critics. (One Hundred Books Famous in Children's Literature, p. 210) Nonetheless The Wind in the Willows flourished and the advertures of the "bad, low animal," Mr. Toad, grew in poupularity. The novel had seen over 30 printings when A. A. Milne adapted part of it for the stage as 'Toad of Toad Hall' in 1929. The first film adaptation was produced in 1949 by Walt Disney as one of two segments in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. Numerous adaptations in film and television have followed since.