WHEN WE WERE VERY YOUNG
First deluxe edition, bound in full red gilt-stamped goatskin, of the first book in the Winnie-The-Pooh series.
Near fine.
Price: $4,000.00
WHEN WE WERE VERY YOUNG
"It takes genius to identify itself with a child's blithe inconsequence... Lewis Carroll had the gift. Stevenson had it... Kipling when he wrote the JUST SO STORIES. There are unmistakable signs of it in Mr. A.A. Milne." – contemporary review in the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE
When Milne – a successful playwright, novelist, and PUNCH columnist – decided to turn his hand to children's verse, his American publisher recalled the anxiety it occasioned: "We are all aware that probably the most hopeless kind of manuscript a publisher expects to receive from his favourite author is that of poetry for children" (quoted in Thwaite). Milne's goal with the collection was to write "Like Stevenson, only better" (referring to the classic CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES). This first Pooh book would quickly become a phenomenon: since "Christopher Robin goes hoppity, hoppity, hop," one mother from New York recorded, "We all had to hop. We kept it up until I was overcome by exhaustion" (quoted in Thwaite). This deluxe edition is the 7th overall, published only a year after the first edition, and is much less common than later deluxe editions.
Read more: Thwaite, Goodbye Christopher Robin: A.A. Milne and the Making of Winnie-The-Pooh.
The Object
London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, (1925). Crown octavo. 7.25'' x 4.75''. Original full red goatskin, ruled and ornamented in gilt, elaborately gilt-stamped spine. In original box with publisher's printed paper label. Pictorial endpapers, all edges gilt, red silk ribbon marker. xii, 100 pages. Ink inscription dated 1925 on half title. Box with typical toning and foxing to label, but unusually strong and without repair. Book with front hinge expertly repaired, very faint evidence of rubbing to boards, a bit of offsetting to gutter of rear endpapers. Red vivid, with little wear or bumping.
The Fine Print
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