THE CRICKET IN TIMES SQUARE
Rare inscribed first edition of this classic Newbery Honor book.
Very good in very good minus jacket.
Price: $2,500.00
THE CRICKET IN TIMES SQUARE
"Well, one night I was coming home on the subway, and I did hear a cricket chirp in Times Square. The story formed in my mind within minutes (an author is very thankful for minutes like those)." — George Selden
THE CRICKET IN TIMES SQUARE has often been described as an "urban counterpoint" (Potts, 327) to CHARLOTTE'S WEB (which Williams also famously illustrated). The story of a musical cricket who saves a struggling Times Square family newsstand with his performances, it won the 1961 Newbery Honor and was later adapted in 1973 by Chuck Jones for an animated short. Along with WRINKLE IN TIME, CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, and FROM THE MIXED UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER, CRICKET ranks among the best and most beloved children's novels of the 1960s and Selden would go on to write six sequels. A rare signed copy of an enduring "modern classic" (ibid).
Read more: David J. Whitin, "Children and Children's Authors," in Language Arts, December 1984; Lesley S. Potts, "George Selden," Dictionary of Literary Biography Volume 52: American Writers for Children Since 1960.
The Object
First printing. New York: Ariel Books / Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, (1960). 9'' x 6''. Original publisher's taupe cloth. In original unclipped ($3.50) color pictorial jacket. 152 pages. Inscribed by Seldon on the front free endpaper: "For -- / with best wishes / George Selden." Jacket toned with edgewear and soil. Bookseller cinderella stamp to bottom of rear flap. Verso of jacket reinforced at spine with tape. Some spots of soil to fore-edge. Overall, sound.
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