![POTTER, Beatrix (1866-1943). The Tale of Peter Rabbit, [no imprint] [colophon: London: Strangeways, printers], February 1902.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2001/CSK/2001_CSK_09122_0275_000(030436).jpg?w=1)
Details
POTTER, Beatrix (1866-1943). The Tale of Peter Rabbit, [no imprint] [colophon: London: Strangeways, printers], February 1902.
16° in 8s, coloured frontispiece and 41 line-block illustrations by Beatrix Potter (frontispiece a little soiled at outer margin, title and ensuing leaves slightly browned at extreme edges, two illustrations with slight ink marks at lower blank margin, another two illustrations faintly-coloured in green crayon), original olive-green pictorial paper-covered boards, plain endpapers (rubbed, more heavily along spine and at corners). Provenance: Beth Calvert (ownership signature, dated 1903, on front free endpaper).
THE PRIVATELY-PUBLISHED FIRST EDITION, second issue with rounded spine. Limited to 450 copies, of which 200 were in the second issue. The author had sent the first of her picture letters to five year old Noel Moore in 1893, to cheer him up during an illness, and it was the great success of her letters to the Moore children which were the genesis of her children's books. In 1905 she wrote: "It is much more satisfactory to address a real live child; I often think that was the secret of the success of Peter Rabbit, it was written to a child -- not made to order." Having rewritten the story and prepared forty-two pen-and-ink drawings and a coloured frontispiece, with no immediate prospects of finding a publisher, Beatrix Potter decided to have the book printed privately. Frederick Warne subsequently agreed to publish a trade edition with coloured illustrations which appeared in October 1902. Linder p. 110 and pp. 420-421; Quinby 1A.
16° in 8s, coloured frontispiece and 41 line-block illustrations by Beatrix Potter (frontispiece a little soiled at outer margin, title and ensuing leaves slightly browned at extreme edges, two illustrations with slight ink marks at lower blank margin, another two illustrations faintly-coloured in green crayon), original olive-green pictorial paper-covered boards, plain endpapers (rubbed, more heavily along spine and at corners). Provenance: Beth Calvert (ownership signature, dated 1903, on front free endpaper).
THE PRIVATELY-PUBLISHED FIRST EDITION, second issue with rounded spine. Limited to 450 copies, of which 200 were in the second issue. The author had sent the first of her picture letters to five year old Noel Moore in 1893, to cheer him up during an illness, and it was the great success of her letters to the Moore children which were the genesis of her children's books. In 1905 she wrote: "It is much more satisfactory to address a real live child; I often think that was the secret of the success of Peter Rabbit, it was written to a child -- not made to order." Having rewritten the story and prepared forty-two pen-and-ink drawings and a coloured frontispiece, with no immediate prospects of finding a publisher, Beatrix Potter decided to have the book printed privately. Frederick Warne subsequently agreed to publish a trade edition with coloured illustrations which appeared in October 1902. Linder p. 110 and pp. 420-421; Quinby 1A.
Special notice
This lot will not be subject to VAT either on the hammer price or the buyer's premium.