First printing of White's first book for children, a charming classic of the small but robust Mouse Adventure genre.
Near fine in very good plus jacket.
Price: $800.00
"When the people in Central Park learned that one of the toy sailboats was being steered by a mouse in a sailor suit, they all came running."
White's Stuart Little, like Thumbelina, is born to standard-sized human parents and takes his entitled place within his human family by right and without question, but suffers many tests and challenges as he makes his way in the world and works to thwart the family cat. Romance, or friendship, is short-lived, leaving the young mouse "alone with his broken dreams and his damaged canoe." The first of White's three great children's books, STUART LITTLE is a quest story, though not a quest with a traditional arc or dénouement. By the end of the novel, Stuart has done many deeds and surmounted any obstacles, but is not finished or at rest: "I rather expect," he says, "that from now on I shall be traveling north until the end of my days."
Read more: Jill Lepore, "The Lion and the Mouse: The battle that reshaped children's literature", The New Yorker.
First edition. New York: Harper & Brothers, (1945). 8.25'' x 5.25''. Original tan pictorial cloth. In original unclipped ($2.00) dust jacket. Green pictorial endpapers. Frontispiece and 87 illustrations throughout in black and white. [10], 131, [1] pages. Contemporary ownership signature to front endpaper. Slight rippling to lower edge of front board. Mild wear to extremities. Jacket faintly sunned at spine, with minor chipping to upper edge and heel of spine.
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