Kate Greenaway's Birthday Book
London and New York: Frederick Warne & Co., Ltd., No date [c. 1918]. Kate GREENAWAY. Cloth. [GIFT BOOK] [RHYMING VERSE]. Printed in Great Britain. Half-title: Kate Greenaway’s Birthday Book for Children
48mo (3 15/16” x 4 ¼”); [vi] [4] 5-126 [127-132]pp; tan cloth over board, stamped green double border surrounding red lettering and a round vignette of a young girl on front; ownership page filled-in with blue ink, a few pages noted with names; fp +11 chromolithographed plates; dates and vignettes printed in sepia within a green printed border interleaved with pages lined for birthday entry; lightly cocked forward, half-title and last page age-toned; very good. Schuster & Engen 39. (5d). Very good. Item #1844
A charming small gift-style book in which to record the birthdays of family and friends. This popular book was first published in 1880 and reissued many times with changes to its cover. Twelve chromolithographed plates picture children at play. A small rhyming verse with a vignette is printed for each day of the year. Much of the verse is humorous, as for February 8th, “There was an old person too fat, / Who wore a remarkable hat; / He said, ‘Let the world talk, / I’ll take a good walk, / And try to get rid of this fat.’”
The author of the verse, Lucy Elizabeth Drummond Davies Sale-Barker (1841-1892), also known by her married name, Lucy Villiers, was a British children’s writer and editor of the children’s periodical, Little Wide-Awake.
Price: $65.00