HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON
First printing of the beautiful meta-picture book on the power of the creative imagination, rarely seen with the original dust jacket so intact.
Very good plus in very good jacket.
Price: $5,000.00
HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON
"There's just little Harold in his pajamas, heading out on an ordinary night to draw a line that runs on forever, a line that forms a moon to light his steps and a path to walk on and nine kinds of pie to eat – as if one well-worn, stubby crayon could allow you to dream up a whole universe. Which of course it can. There's no better art history lesson than that." – art critic Deborah Solomon
Legendary children's book editor Ursula Nordstrom nearly turned down this book, which she later viewed as an instructive error in judgment. Besides becoming immediate bestsellers, the minimalist Harold books – simultaneously simple and profound – have become an influential favorite of many other artists and authors: in his 1982 acceptance speech for the Caldecott Award for JUMANJI, Chris Van Allsburg explicitly thanks "Harold, for his purple crayon"; Maurice Sendak praised the "supreme inventiveness" of Harold; Rita Dove recalled the book as her earliest favorite, and names Harold in her poem "Maple Valley Branch Library, 1967." A terrific copy of perhaps the perfect children's book.
Read more: Solomon, "Beyond Finger Paint," 17 May 1998 New York Times Book Review; Nel, Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children's Literature; Sendak, Horn Book Magazine, May-June 1994.
The Object
[New York]: Harper & Brothers, 1955. 5.75'' x 4.5''. Original quarter black cloth, color pictorial boards. In original unclipped ($1.50, lower corner) brown and purple pictorial dust jacket. Illustrated by Johnson in black and purple on every page. [64] pages. Early ink ownership inscription on front fly leaf. Book with bumping to corners, otherwise quite fresh; jacket with some shallow edgewear, most notably at spine ends and corners, with a small chip on rear bottom corner: spine unfaded.
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