First English edition of the pacifist children's classic, banned in Franco's Spain at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.
Near fine in very good dust jacket.
Price: $850.00
"He wouldn't fight and be fierce no matter what they did. He just sat and smelled."
The first collaboration of Lawson and Leaf, FERDINAND was a hit with children but caused controversy among adults: the story of the bull who would rather smell the flowers than fight with the other bulls was read politically in the context of the Spanish Civil War. Although he hadn't meant for the book to carry an ideological message, Leaf received angry letters claiming he was "deliberately corrupting children of an impressionable age" (quoted in Davis). A wonderful work, in which the beauty of nonconformity still reads as subversive.
Read more: Davis, The Gospel of Kindness: Animal Welfare and the Making of Modern America.
London: Hamish Hamilton, (1937). Quarto. 8'' x 6.75''. Original quarter tan cloth, red pictorial paper boards. In original price-clipped dust jacket. Yellow pictorial endpapers. Illustrated throughout with black-and-white line drawings by Lawson. [64] pages. Faint soiling to boards, some bumping to corners. Jacket with several closed tears, including a long closed tear on front panel near spine, many repaired with tape on verso, some chipping to spine ends and corners. Red of jacket entirely unfaded.
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