Description
Fine dust jacket, a mylar dust jacket has been added, a marbled background, a black-and-white illustration of a magician and a rabbit with black lettering on front, marbled rear cover. The Fine condition binding is staple bound, stiff paper with no printing. The binding is tight and pages are clean. Signed copy, the signature is on the front free endpaper. The unique book has the magician, his hat and stand in black-and-white, as the rabbits are counted they appear in color, illustrations can be found at the turn of every page. The book measures 2.5″ wide x 3.5″ tall.
From the book:
This book was first published on the occasion of an exhibition of original drawings and other materials illustrating the art of Maurice Sendak at the Philip H. & A. S. W. Rosenbach Foundation, 2010 Delancey Place, Philadelphia Pennsylvania It was set 1n type at The Stinehour Press and printed at The Meriden Gravure Company.
About the Author/Illustrator:
Maurice Bernard Sendak (June 10, 1928 – May 8, 2012) was an American author and illustrator of children’s books. His book Where the Wild Things Are was first published in 1963. Born to Polish-Jewish parents, his childhood was impacted by the death of many of his family members during the Holocaust. Sendak wrote books including In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, and illustrated many works by other authors such as the Little Bear books by Else Holmelund Minarik.
Sendak was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Polish Jewish immigrants Sadie and Philip Sendak. Maurice said that his childhood was a “terrible situation” due to the death of members of his extended family during the Holocaust which introduced him at a young age to the concept of mortality. His love of books began when, as a child, he developed health issues and was confined to his bed. When he was 12 years old, he decided to become an illustrator after watching Walt Disney’s film Fantasia.
One of Sendak’s first professional commissions, when he was 20 years old, was creating window displays for the toy store FAO Schwarz. His illustrations were first published in 1947 in a textbook titled Atomics for the Millions by Maxwell Leigh Eidinoff. He spent much of the 1950s illustrating children’s books written by others before beginning to write his own stories. His older brother Jack Sendak also became an author of children’s books, two of which were illustrated by Maurice in the 1950s.
Maurice Sendak began his children’s book career as an illustrator. His work appears in eight books by Ruth Krauss including A Hole is to Dig, published in 1952, which brought wide attention to his artwork. He illustrated the five original books in the Little Bear series by Else Holmelund Minarik which were published between 1957 and 1968.
Sendak gained international acclaim after writing and illustrating Where the Wild Things Are, edited by Ursula Nordstrom at Harper & Row. It features Max, a boy who “rages against his mother for being sent to bed without any supper”. The book’s depictions of fanged monsters concerned some parents when it was first published, as his characters were somewhat grotesque in appearance.
When Sendak saw a manuscript of Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories, the first children’s book by Isaac Bashevis Singer, on the desk of an editor at Harper & Row, he offered to illustrate the book. It was first published in 1966 and received a Newbery Honor.
His 1981 book Outside Over There is a rescue story includes an illustration of a ladder leaning out of the window of a home, which according to one report, was based on the crime scene in the Lindbergh kidnapping, “which terrified Sendak as a child.”
Also in 1993, Sendak published a picture book, We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy.
In 2011, Sendak adapted his Sesame Street short Bumble Ardy into a children’s book, his first in over thirty years, and ultimately his last published work before his death. (Wikipedia)
