THE TALE OF MRS TITTLEMOUSE 1910 1ST EDITION BEATRIX POTTER PETER RABBIT VG
Item History & Price
Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse, published: London Frederick Warne and Co., 1910 first edition. Sextodecimo. original blue paper boards, titles to front board and spine in white, pictorial label to front board and pictorial endpapers. 27 colour illustrations by the author. an excellent copy, spine slightly faded and minimal marking to front board. Internally there is a neat contemporary inscription to the front endpaper. All pages internally in fine condition and tig...ht in the binding, bookseller's stamp to the rear endpaper. A delightful copy of this rare 1910 first edition.Mrs. Tittlemouse is the tale of her attempts to keep her underground house neat and tidy in spite of various unexpected visitors ("friends" they were called in the manuscript: this was changed to "visitors" in the book, but even more appropriate would be "intruders"). These bees, a beetle, a ladybug, a butterfly, a spider and of course the debonair toad Mr.Jackson. The manuscript also included three woodlice, but Warne objected that such creatures did not belong in a children's book; so they are instead described as "three creepy-crawly people" in the book. There were actually two printings dated 1910 which are identical; the third was printed in 1911. Customers were given the choice of buying Mrs. Tittlemouse in blue-grey or cream paper-covered boards priced at 1/-, or the deluxe version in decorated cloth priced at 1/6. For this title the pictorial paste-down endpapers were revised to their present-day design, showing Mrs. Tittlemouse and a bee in the upper right corner of each paste-down.
