FIRST EDITIONS OF CHILDREN’S BOOKS AT
ASH RARE BOOKS
43 HURON ROAD
LONDON SW17 8RE
UNITED KINGDOM

London : C. Arthur Pearson, 1920. First edition. “Christopher Beck has brought the pirate story abreast of the times, for it is an air pirate and his ultimate defeat by two plucky young British airmen, that this story is concerned. Airships, seaplanes and motors send the narrative hurtling along at a breathless pace” (The Scotsman, 9th December 1920).
Post 8vo (21cm). 224pp. Eight dramatic plates by (Joseph) Watson Charlton (1876-1948). Original pictorial cloth; spine lightly worn and a little sunned; outer leaves a little tanned; a few internal marks and spots, but a good copy. Contemporary (March 1921) school prize label for Blealow Parochial School – the prize going to Alice Webster, for Progress.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 43520 – or simply click on the button

London : George Newnes, (1924). First edition. Fourteen William stories, including “William and Photography”, “William and the Black Cat”, “William the Showman”, “William Enters Politics”, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). [iv],250,[ii]pp – including integral front endpapers. Illustrations, some full-page, by Thomas Henry. Original red cloth, lettered in black; faint crease to lower cover; a few edge-spots, but overall a very good, fresh and sound copy. Neat gift inscription dated May 1924.

£75

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44461 – or simply click on the button

London : A. & C. Black, (1938). First edition. Three sisters start a riding school – “the whole idea is pure nonsense” explodes Uncle Manfred – but they set out to prove him wrong. “Full of the right ‘jodhpur’ tone and suggests a really thorough knowledge of horseflesh” (Hull Daily Mail, 10th December 1938).
Foolscap 4to (23cm). viii,216pp. Illustrations and plates by Cecil Gwendolen Trew (1897-1958). Original pale grey cloth, lettered in blue; mild tanning of endpapers; just a hint of edge spotting, but a very good, crisp and sound copy in the original Trew dust-jacket – a pictorial design in red and black on grey – just slightly creased and with a single repaired tear on upper panel – but also very good and fresh.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 28965 – or simply click on the button

London : André Deutsch, (1975). First edition. Signed by John Fuller on the title-page. A novel for children – property developer villainy in a Welsh village.
Post 8vo (21cm). (168)pp. Original turquoise boards, lettered in silver; just slightly bruised, otherwise very good in the original colour-printed Meg Rutherford dust-jacket – just slightly bruised and very faintly tanned.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 27936 – or simply click on the button

London : Addey & Co., 1853. First British edition. A book heralded as the first genuine children’s novel set in California – and a cracking tale of the California Gold Rush as young Sam Gilman accompanies his father to San Francisco, where they arrive by sea on the Fourth of July. First published in New York earlier that year with the additional sub-title, “The Young Californian”.
Foolscap 8vo (166 x 100mm). [ii],(9)-214pp – pagination irregular, but collates as the British Library copy. Engraved frontispiece by Dalziel and title-page on plate paper. Bound in a stylish, perhaps French, half polished tan calf, delicately gilt on spine; marbled sides; red edges; just a touch rubbed; hairline split at head of upper joint, but solid and sound; a few minor marks and spots, but a very good and attractive copy. Blank ex-libris label covering an earlier ownership inscription.

£150

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 39010 – or simply click on the button

London : National Council of Evangelical Free Churches, 1907. First edition. Twenty-nine improving talks for the young, with metaphors from sports and hobbies – cricket, golf, cycling, photography, and much else – “We are the batsmen, and we have to keep our wicket up”, etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). viii,(140)pp. Original pictorial cloth, gilt and enamelled; spine a touch dulled, but overall a very good copy.

£40

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 42429 – or simply click on the button

Harmondsworth : Penguin Books, (1963). First edition. A boy discovers a Stone Age caveman living at the foot of a disused chalk-pit. King’s celebrated best-seller, here in the original Puffin edition, delightfully illustrated by Edward Ardizzone.
Crown 8vo (19cm). (158),[ii]pp. Illustrations. Original pictorial wrappers by Ardizzone; some light wear and creasing, but a good copy of a fragile publication.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46709 – or simply click on the button

London : J. & E. Bumpus, 1932. First edition : limited to 400 numbered copies. “Including a catalogue of the exhibition, with notes; an essay on Dodgson’s illustrators by Harold Hartley; and additional literary pieces (chiefly unpublished). With six illustrations”. A charming catalogue of the centenary exhibition, describing over six-hundred Carroll related items and rarities, together with the Hartley essay, and also including a number of previously unpublished (or unpublished in book form) short pieces by Carroll – juvenilia, articles, acrostics, extracts from letters, etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (xx),(140)pp. Frontispiece and five plates. Original cloth; cloth a little bubbled; edges slightly spotted, but a very good, bright and clean copy, in a just slightly nicked and dulled dust-jacket.

London : J. & E. Bumpus, 1932. First edition : limited to 400 numbered copies. “Including a catalogue of the exhibition, with notes; an essay on Dodgson’s illustrators by Harold Hartley; and additional literary pieces (chiefly unpublished). With six illustrations”. A charming catalogue of the centenary exhibition, describing over six-hundred Carroll related items and rarities, together with the Hartley essay, and also including a number of previously unpublished (or unpublished in book form) short pieces by Carroll – juvenilia, articles, acrostics, extracts from letters, etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (xx),(140)pp. Frontispiece and five plates. Original cloth; cloth a little bubbled; edges slightly spotted, but a very good, bright and clean copy, in a just slightly nicked and dulled dust-jacket.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 20460 – or simply click on the button

Boston : Horn Book, (1970). A reprint of the original 1947 edition. An extensive overview of the subject, with chapters on the period before 1800; nineteenth-century England; early American illustration; Howard Pyle; foreign picture books; graphic processes; illustrators of children’s classics; animated drawing; twentieth-century developments, etc., supplemented with biographies of living illustrators worldwide, bibliographies, etc.
Demy 4to (28cm) . xvi,(528)pp. Numerous illustrations. Original cloth; a few faint spots to top edge, but a very good and bright copy.

£40

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 28591 – or simply click on the button

London : Stanley Paul & Co., 1908. First edition. “True stories of real peril told by men and boys from personal experience, including original stories by G. Manville Fenn, Clive R. Fenn, H. J. A. Hervey, and others”. Thirty-three stories, including Manville Fenn’s “The Black Spot”, as well as “With Panthers in a Cotton Field”, “Fighting Loons”, “With a Tiger in Manchuria”, “Treed by Wolves on the Koyukuk”, etc.
Post 8vo (21cm). 376pp. Plates and illustrations in text. Original pictorial cloth over bevelled boards, gilt and enamelled; all edges gilt; lightly bruised; some rubbing and wear; covers slightly discoloured in places; a few internal marks and creases, but a good copy. Gift inscription dated 1919, from Gordon to Rhoda.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 41563 – or simply click on the button

London : B. T. Batsford, (1979). A reprint of the original 1954 edition, with a fresh preface updating the list of recommended reading, etc. An illustrated history and collectors’ guide to English children’s books, with checklists of the most important authors, the publishing history of the major works, etc.
Crown 4to (26cm). (256)pp. Colour plates. 107 illustrations. Original boards; a few faint marks, but a very good copy in a just slightly dusty and price-clipped dust-jacket.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 25627 – or simply click on the button

London : Sylvan Press, (1944). First edition. “Jungletown School was breaking up for the holidays ... by accident, George, the Hippo, had seen his report”. The holiday tales of Jerry the Ostrich, Scotty the Penguin, Buffy the Frog, etc. With delightful sepia illustrations by Val Biro.
Demy 8vo (22cm). (64)pp – including decorated integral endpapers. Illustrations throughout. Original blue cloth, blocked and lettered in gilt; mild sunning at foot; a few faint edge-spots, but a very good copy in the original Biro dust-jacket – a design in pale blue, black and white – a little worn and lightly sunned, with a few minor repairs, but attractive and essentially complete still.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 25807 – or simply click on the button

London : Hutchinson & Co., 1907. First edition. Judge Parry and an extraordinary Scottish fantasy tale for children, in which a Swiss Seal umpiring a cricket match seems relatively normal. Illustrated by Harry Furniss (1854-1925).
Foolscap 4to (21cm). viii,248pp. Illustrations. Original red cloth, pictorially blocked and lettered in gilt and black on upper cover and spine; all edges gilt; a little bruised; covers with some patches of fading and discolouration to edges; endpapers tanned; some internal marks and creases; but a good and still bright copy. Ownership inscription.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 27928 – or simply click on the button

London : Blackie & Son, 1911. First edition. A delightful book about London for children – not just Oranges and Lemons and other nursery rhymes, but the origins of the city, the Romans, Boadicea, Saxon London, the Danes, Westminster Abbey, the Thames, London Bridge, the Tower, the Great Fire, St. Paul’s, London children, St. James’s Park, the Crystal Palace, the Zoo, Covent Garden, the docks, and London servants. With colour plates by Wilfrid Ball, W. L. Wyllie, Frank Brangwyn, Samuel Scott, Stanhope Forbes, Vicat Cole, and others, as well as numerous illustrations, some full-page, in the text.
Foolscap 4to (23cm). 128pp. Twelve coloured plates. Numerous illustrations. Maps. Music. Original pictorial cloth; a touch dulled, faintly marked and slightly bruised; endpapers and outer leaves a little tanned, but otherwise internally a very good, clean and sound copy.

£40

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44103 – or simply click on the button

London: George G. Harrap & Co., (1937). First edition. Fifteen of Raymond’s much-loved stories about the Floppo Woppo – “He was green and woolly with black spots and a very shiny nose and six black legs. As most animals have only two or four legs, the Floppo Woppo had two more to manage than any of his friends, and sometimes it got him into rather a muddle”.
Post 8vo (21cm). 128pp. Numerous delightful illustrations, many in two colours, by Henry Elliott-Blake (1902-1983). Original yellow pictorial cloth, blocked in black and green; very minor bruising at foot; mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good copy indeed in the original dust-jacket, also very good indeed, with just the faintest of wear at foot.

£100

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 46086 – or simply click on the button

London : Country Life, (1932). First edition. The adventures of three London children while their mother is away. “A story for Medium-sized People in eight incidents”. Illustrated by James H. Dowd (1884-1956).
Foolscap 4to (22cm). [x],(172),[ii]pp. Illustrations. Original yellow cloth, blocked and lettered in blue and black; top edge a touch dusty; very mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good, bright, sound and unworn copy in the original black and sand dust-jacket – the jacket just lightly worn.

£40

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 27408 – or simply click on the button

London : John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1896 [i.e. 1895]. The first illustrated edition of a perennial favourite – the collection of sixty or more children’s poems by Stevenson first published ten years earlier – “The Land of Counterpane”, “The Land of Nod”, “My Bed is a Boat”, “The Land of Story-Books”, etc. Illustrated throughout by Charles Robinson (1870-1937) – “Just as ‘A Child’s Garden of Verses’ is the best of its kind – you are certain it will live as long ... as the presence of little ones brightens the earth – so Charles Robinson’s illustrations are the best of their kind ... John Lane’s exquisite volume is a treasure” (contemporary review in Black & White).
Post 8vo (21cm). xiv,(140),[iv],16pp – the advertisements dated 1895. Cover design and illustrations throughout by Robinson. Original pictorial cloth gilt; top edge gilt; a few slight marks; a couple of faint splashes to upper cover; a few spots, chiefly to the endpapers, but a very good, bright and sound copy. Dated (1900) gift inscription to Mary Robinson from her brother Cecil on front free endpaper.

SOLD

Edinburgh : Andersons, [ca.1925]. A reprint of this attractive and popular compilation, re-issued in various formats from about 1905 onwards – the words and music of forty favourite children’s songs – “Girls and Boys Come out to Play”, “I Love Little Pussy”, “Sing a Song of Sixpence”, and others which might not pass muster in this day and age – with three-colour plates by Lawson Wood, Charles Crombie, Harry Rountree, etc.
Crown 4to (25cm). 62 [i.e. 60]pp. Eight colour plates. Original pictorial satin cotton, with rabbits, chicks, etc.; slight wear at tips; a touch sunned, but still a very good copy.

£25

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 40045 – or simply click on the button

London : Simpkin, Marshall & Co.; Hamilton, Adams & Co., [etc]., 1850. Eighth edition. "Designed to inspire young persons with a taste for that useful branch of education" – Little Lucy Harcourt is brought up to the mark in grammar – "though she sometimes betrayed a little impatience, ill-humour, and carelessness, yet if we look over these little faults, she was tolerably good". Intended for use both at home and in schools, but although the work evidently enjoyed a considerable nineteenth-century vogue, being first published in about 1827 (the date of the preface) and reaching a tenth edition in 1865, we are unable to trace any edition earlier than the 1841 (sixth) in the British Library – and no copy of the present edition in any of the major UK libraries.
Post 12mo (19cm). 204pp. Original blind-stamped cloth, lettered in gilt; a touch sunned; small and faint band of uneven colour across spine, but a very good copy. Impenetrable contemporary ownership inscription.

£50

To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 36228 – or simply click on the button