Author: POTTER, Beatrix
Title: Tale of Peter Rabbit, the [and] the Tailor of Gloucester
Description: London: Privately printed, 1902. Privately Printed Peter Rabbit & Privately Printed Tailor of Gloucester POTTER, Beatrix. The Tale of Peter Rabbit. [London, Privately printed], February 1902. First (privately printed) edition, second issue. One of 200 copies printed. Twelvemo (5 3/16 x 4 1/8 inches; 132 x 105 mm.). [84] pp. Color frontispiece and forty-one full-page black and white text illustrations. Original olive green boards pictorially stamped and lettered in black on front cover. Spine rounded (not flat). Spine a little darkened, with extremities very lightly rubbed. A near fine copy of this extremely rare edition. “The first issue comprised 250 copies; they are distinguished by a flat-backed binding of gray-green boards, printed with a black-line drawing. The books were ready on 16 December and Miss Potter began giving them away to selected friends and relatives and selling them to others at one shilling two pence each. By this time, however, Beatrix Potter’s career had already been given its first impetus, for the publisher Frederick Warne & Co. had agreed to accept the book for publication in a regular trade edition. But in February 1902, before the trade edition was ready, Miss Potter ordered another 200 copies to be printed of her private edition, this second issue had a rather better binding, with a rounded back and darker printed boards. In October 1902 the Warne commercial edition was published” (Morgan Library, Early Children’s Books, 220, describing the 1901 first issue). Together with: POTTER, Beatrix. The Tailor of Gloucester. [London: Privately Printed by Strangeways and Sons], December 1902. First (privately printed) edition of Beatrix Potter’s scarce second book. One of 500 copies printed. Twelvemo (5 1/4 x 4 inches; 133 x 102 mm.). [64] pp. Color frontispiece and fifteen color plates. Original pink boards pictorially stamped and lettered in black on front cover. Frontispiece has a minor paper-fault (at the time of binding) with lower corner turned over. A very fine copy. “Her privately printed edition of Peter Rabbit having enjoyed some success, Beatrix Potter decided to have this next work brought out in the same manner-It has a format similar to the privately printed Peter Rabbit, but with a binding of pink printed boards and a rounded back instead of a flat one. Miss Potter ordered 500 copies printed; they were ready by the middle of December 1902” (Morgan Library, Early Children’s Books). A wonderful pair housed together in a red cloth slipcase within a marbled board slipcase with red morocco spine label lettered in gilt. Linder, p. 420. Quinby 1A [&] Linder, p. 420. Morgan Library, Early Children’s Books, 221. Quinby 3. .

Keywords: Illustrated Books


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