HAROLD AT THE NORTH POLE
First printing of the fourth book in the Harold series of mid-century meta-picture books.
Near fine in very good plus jacket.
Price: $1,000.00
HAROLD AT THE NORTH POLE
"Harold's universe – a place where every detail of the crayon's trail is important and where the imagination has the power to change the world." – Philip Nel
This installment was first published "in a somewhat abbreviated version" in GOOD HOUSEKEEPING as "Harold and the Big Day," in part because Johnson worried his publisher hadn't been printing enough new copies of HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON to coincide with the first film adaptation of the book appearing that Christmas. 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 names Harold in her poem "Maple Valley Branch Library, 1967." A lovely copy, scarce in this condition.
Read more: 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, 1957, 1958. 5.75'' x 4.5''. Original quarter black cloth, purple and white paper pictorial boards. In original purple and white pictorial dust jacket, clipped at front flap corners but with "175" stamped in red near upper corner of front flap. Illustrated by Johnson in brown, white and purple on every page. [64] pages. Housed in custom purple cloth clamshell box with gilt-lettered goatskin spine label. Only light edgewear to jacket.
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