GREENAWAY, Kate

Apple Pie , A

London: George Routledge and Sons, 1886. Item #02228

The Book John Ruskin Hated
In the Scarcest Binding Variant

GREENAWAY, Kate. A Apple Pie. London: George Routledge and Sons, [1886].

First edition. Oblong quarto (8 1/4 x 10 1/8 in; 212 x 262 mm). [44] pp. backed with textured paper. Twenty color illustrations

Publisher's original blue pictorial cloth with title lettering in gilt with red drop-shadow, and picture in red reproducing the illustration "C Cut It" Rear cover reproducing in red the illustration, "E Eat It." Edges stained red. Royal blue endpapers. Mild wear to extremities otherwise a bright, clean, and excellent copy.

In this, the rarest, scarcely seen binding variant, the pictorial boards are blue, not green, possess board illustrations different than those of Schuster & Engen 1a, and have each page backed with linen paper.

By the time that A Apple Pie was published, Kate Greenaway had fallen under the sway of critic John Ruskin, a tentative romance fraught by her insecurities about her work and his often harsh critical standards which he never failed to express as her confidant, counselor, and Svengali in correspondence.

"In early November she sent him a copy of the recently published A Apple Pie, a book he knew nothing about. It can have been of no surprise that Ruskin objected to the book, done without his advice or approval. He considered the project to be a personal affront, an insult to their friendship. He wrote a series of outraged letters: 'I am considerably vexed about Apple Pie...' '... All your faults are gaining on you...'. Still obviously disgusted with A Apple Pie, he concluded, 'Why do you do this to the public?'" (Engen, p. 141).

Because she was great at it and the public loved her.

Schuster & Engen 1.1d. Osborne I, p.90. Grolier 100 Children's Books #50.

Price: $750.00