I have been in the rare and antiquarian book business for over forty years; my family has been in the rare books business since 1876. Rare books are in my blood.
Snickerty Nick
Los Angeles: Sutton House, 1935. Item #04912
Snickerty Nick with the Music
Near Fine in original Printed Dust Jacket
[RACKHAM, Arthur, illustrator]. Snickerty Nick & the Giant. By Julia Ellsworth Ford… Rhymes by Witter Bynner. Music by Charles Arthur Ridgway. Los Angeles San Franciso: Sutton House, [1935].
[Third edition, the first with the music included]. Quarto (9 1/2 x 7 3/16 inches; 242 x 183 mm.). [viii], [1]-81, [1, blank], [83]-132 pp. Three full-page monotone plates (facing pp. 16, 20 & 42), eight full-page black & white drawings and two line drawings. Original 'bright yellow' cloth with pictorial stamping in black on the front cover in black. A near fine copy in the original yellow pictorial dust jacket, some light chipping to extremities, some tiny tape repairs, otherwise an excellent example of a dust jacket that we have never seen before.
The differences between this and the 1933 edition are as follows: The title-page of the 1933 edition has the imprint Suttonhouse: Los Angeles 1933 whilst the 1935 edition has Suttonhouse Los Angeles San Francisco and no date (the date 1935 is on the verso of the title-page]. The text and illustrations are identical but the 'Suggestion for Production' p. 77- 80 (in the 1933 edition), has now been changed and extended to p. 81. Following p. 81 is an additional title-page for the music which follows from p. 85 through p. 132.
"The idea of the Selfish Giant in this play has been taken from the story of Oscar Wilde's Selfish Giant. Spring would not come to his garden because he would not let the children play in it. It was always winter there. One morning he woke up hearing the music of a linnet singing in his garden. He jumped out of bed and saw a most wonderful sight, "flowers were looking up through the green grass and laughing," and in every tree was a little child; but one little boy was too tiny to climb the tree and the Giant's heart melted and he helped the little child into the tree. The little child kissed him and forever after the children played in the Giant's garden, because his heart had softened through love of the little child. The children never saw the child again. But one day he came to the Giant, who saw on the palms of the child's hands "the prince of two nails and the prince of two nails were on the little feet". The little child had come to take the Giant to play in his garden, "which is Paradise." My indebtedness to this story is the character of the Selfish Giant. The little play of Snickerty Nick is not a dramatization of The Selfish Giant.
The character of Snickerty Nick is an original character and the play centers around him. The little boy is only a loving and beloved child, and Spring and Winter are personified by faeries and gnomes. To Arthur Rackham I tender my most sincere thanks whose magic touch, as in Peter Pan, Grimm's Faery Tales and Undine, making real all faeries and gnomes, endears all child life to grown-ups as well as to children." (Forward by Julia Ellsworth Ford).
This edition with the music not recorded in Riall
In over fifty-five years of specializing in the work of Arthur Rackham I have never seen the 1933 edition, and I have only seen this 1935 edition once before - this copy which I sold in 1989. According to Riall (see p. 180) the 1933 edition is listed as a "reprint of 1919 edition, with same coloured illustrations. Bound in bright yellow cloth… 3 full page illustrations in full colour. 8 drawings in black and white. This edition has the music added at the end of the book."
OCLC locates just seven copies of the 1933 edition and twelve copies of the 1935 edition in libraries and institutions worldwide - none of the copies cited have any bibliographical details other than the book has 80 pp. (1933) or 132 pp. (1935). Both of these editions are unknown to The Arthur Rackham Society.
The two books were produced in 1933 & 1935 to accompany the first Hollywood production of Snickerty Nick on April 8th, 1933. Julia Ellsworth Ford's famous little 'folk' play was directed by Pauline Parker.
Price: $1,250.00