Description
Very Good+ dust jacket illustrated on front and back, price clipped. A mylar dust jacket has been added. Very Good+ binding is dark blue cloth over boards, gilt lettering on spine. Several fade spots to boards. Black-and-white and color illustration throughout. Page edges show toning. The binding is tight and pages are clean. The book measures 12.0″ tall x 8.7″ wide.
Stated “First Edition”
About the book (from the dust jacket)
In this first survey of children’s books for the collector, Eric Quayle describes works from the late sixteenth century to the present day, with illustrations taken from his own extensive and valuable collection. Hand-colored frontispieces, woodcut or copperplate engravings convey the ephemeral, elusive pleasure these books brought to children of past centuries. Apart from describing books in the more familiar fields of juvenilia, such as fairy tales, folklore, poetry and rhymes, Eric Quayle also discusses the development of history and travel books, adventure stories, and annuals. Before television provided a more predictable gallery of heroes, the comics, penny dreadfuls, and other illustrated books furnished a teeming world of fantasy. The author leads the collector into a fascinating study of the most imaginative field of literary history.
Many of the books the author describes were bought cheaply, but some of the rare first editions were costly acquisitions. Eric Quayle has spent twenty years building up his collection of children’s books, containing world-famous volumes. The present-day collector still has many opportunities to explore new fields and, with the help of this comprehensive work, he can purchase books with confidence in his ability to collect in a specialist field. Book collecting can be the most rewarding of hobbies, both from the satisfaction derived in enjoying these charming and often precious books, and from the sound financial investment a collection represents.
