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Tale of Mr. Tod, The
London: Frederick Warne and Co., 1912. Item #06257
First Edition of “The Tale of Mr. Tod”
POTTER, Beatrix. The Tale of Mr. Tod. London: Frederick Warne and Co., 1912.
First edition. Twelvemo (5 3/8 x 4 1/8 inches; 137 x 105 mm.). 93, [1] pp. Color frontispiece and fourteen color plates (included in pagination). Black and white vignette on title-page and forty-one black and white vignettes in the text.
Publisher's gray boards decoratively stamped and lettered in dark green on front cover within a dark green single rule border and decoratively stamped and lettered in dark green on spine. Large color pictorial label on front cover within a blind rectangular panel surrounded by a broad dark green single rule border. Color pictorial endpapers (Quinby Plate XI). Minimal darkening to spine, otherwise a fine copy.
"The year 1912 appears on the front of the title-page of the first two printings, which are believed to be identical." (Linder).
"Unlike Beatrix Potter's earlier books, the principal characters are villains!" Linder, A History of the Writings, p.210.
A fine copy of the author's first book to be so well illustrated with pen & ink drawings, largely due to a loss of enthusiasm for making so many colour plates on her part. As a result Warne decided to create a wholly new series, 'The Peter Rabbit Books, Series II, New Style', with a new style of binding, which ran to two titles (the second being Pigling Bland), after which the books' format reverted to that of the others.
Linder, p. 429; Quinby 21; V & A 1605.
Price: $950.00