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HER FIRST APPEARANCE IN PRINT
8vo (185 × 115 mm), pp. xviii, 183, [1], 32 (publisher's adverts). Wood engraved frontispiece by Kate Greenaway with three compartments in the upper half depicting reading, music-making and embroidery, the large lower compartment showing a nurse with a baby on her knee and children reading and playing around her, the whole surrounded by stylised branches and divided by leafy sprigs and tendrils, 3 further plates (not by Greenway) showing apparatus for the ‘nursery gymnasium’ (swings and a slide). Complete with original tissue guard (slightly spotted) after frontispiece. Original publishers' red blindstamped cloth title in decorative gilt cartouches to upper cover and spine. Very light soiling to head of both covers, spine ends lightly inturned, paper of upper hinge just cracking. Early gift or ownership inscription in pencil ‘St Petersburg, Russia, 11 July 1871.’ A very nice copy of a book rarely found thus.
First edition, including the first published illustration by Kate Greenaway. The daughter of a London wood engraver, Greenaway trained at the Finsbury School of Art and the National Art Training School. ‘In 1867 Kate Greenaway's first book illustration-the frontispiece to Infant Amusements, or, How to Make a Nursery Happy-was published, clearly influenced by the style of John Leech and John Gilbert, book illustrators who worked within the picturesque and caricaturist style of the 1830s and 1840s’ (Rosemary Mitchell in ODNB). Kingston’s little work was influential in brightening the sometimes austere Victorian nursery. He urged the provision of well-made toys made to his own design (the slide he illustrates looks especially appealing) and the use of suitable toys (such as Noah’s Ark) for the Sabbath. Activity games are encouraged and a good plain diet recommended. The early inscription from St Petersburg is intriguing, though we are unable to identify the initials.
£800.00
(equal to approx. US$1266.78* or €989.37* for 22 May 2012)
* Dollar and Euro prices are given as a guideline only. The actual exchange rate may vary according to your payment option.
