Children's Book Gallery is an antiquarian bookshop dealing in children's books from 1750 to 1950 that represent the best of the marketplace, both in rarity and condition. Our primary focus is on graphically interesting books from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries aimed at children younger than adolescents, but we include all kinds of children's books with charm and character. We also specialize in original children's book art.
[Johnson, Richard]
Worcester, MA: Isaiah Thomas, 1787. 12mo, 119 pp. + [4] pp. advertisements. Uncut and unbound, first page is the title-page (lacking wrappers and inserted frontispiece). Page 53 with a traingular piece missing in bottom corner. 8 signatures tied together in original publisher’s cords. 20 woodcut illustrations in the text. A remarkable survival in original condition, albeit before binding and thus lacking the frontispiece. OCLC notes: “1st American ed. Welch notes that the vols bound thus were part of a publisher's remainder. first pub by E. Newbery, Johnson's day-book notes delivery of text 16 Oct 1780.” Evans 20440. Welch 680.1. Rosenbach $1,250.00
(Chapbook)
Baltimore: William Raine, [c. 1830]. 12mo. 6 ff. Illustrated with colored wood engravings throughout. Printed on one side only. Original printed wrappers have been imperceptibly repaired at backstrip, and show light creasing and wrinkling to covers. Some light spotting internally. A series of two-stanza verses highlight the rewards of good behavior and the consequences of poor behavior. This is a very rare chapbook, with no copies of this edition recorded in institutional holdings. OCLC records two Baltimore printings (possibly the same), each in one copy. Both are titled “William Raines Edition” but list Bayly and Burns as publisher. Not in $1,250.00
Robertson, W. Graham.
London: William Heinemann, 1904. Folio, (66), 14pp. translations. Each song printed in manuscript facsimile and illustrated with two engravings on wood printed in colors by Edmund Evans, and wood engravings in black and white. Original quarter brown buckram and white boards (soiled of course), upper cover lettered in black with an illustration printed in color. A very good copy with an original watercolor for the book (see below) First edition. 1 of 350 copies; this copy is accompanied by the original watercolor double page spread for the song Joli Coeur de Rose. Each of the songs (music and lyrics in $4,750.00
Greenaway, Kate.
London: George Routledge and Sons, [1884]. Small 12mo, [24]pp. Publisher's special binding of decorated imitation ivory morocco covers, stamped in gilt, bright orange end papers. Previous owner’s stamp to front paste down (Earl of Altamont / Haslemere, Surrey). Six full-page color illustrations, including frontispiece, plus numerous smaller illustrations throughout. A very good copy. First edition. Kate Greenaway (1846-1901) started working on her first Almanack in 1882. At this time she was already a well-known illustrator of greeting cards and books for children. Schuster & Engen 5:3c. $275.00
