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.
Now We Are Six
London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1928. Item #06566
A Milne Classic in a Fine Rivière Binding
“Christopher Robin Is Six” – A Superb Decorative Copy
MILNE, A[lan] A[lexander]. Now We Are Six. With decorations by Ernest H. Shepard. London: Methuen & Co., [1928].
Fourth edition. Small octavo (7 5/16 x 4 3/4 inches; 189 x 121 mm.). xi, [1, blank], 103, [1], [1, printer’s imprint] pp. With numerous black and white illustrations in the text.
Elegantly bound ca. 1928 by Rivière & Son in full blue polished calf, covers double-ruled in gilt, the upper cover pictorially stamped in gilt with five charming figures from the text surrounding the title, all within a fine gilt frame. Spine with five raised bands, richly tooled in gilt in compartments, with two red morocco labels lettered in gilt. Blue marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. The original peach pictorial endpapers, printed in black, bound in at front and rear. Spine very slightly mellowed, otherwise an exceptionally fine copy. Housed in a blue cloth slipcase.
A most attractive and unusually well-preserved example of Now We Are Six, the third volume in A. A. Milne’s beloved Winnie-the-Pooh series, published at the height of his literary partnership with Shepard. Issued two years after Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), the present volume continues the gentle poetic chronicles of Christopher Robin’s imaginative world - poems that balance whimsy with a quiet, often wistful awareness of childhood’s passing.
Shepard’s illustrations - already inseparable from Milne’s text by this date - appear here in their original black and white form, capturing with remarkable economy the personalities of Pooh, Piglet, and their companions. The famous vignette of Christopher Robin “going on an adventure” appears on the cover in gilt, lending this binding a particularly appropriate decorative coherence.
The binding, executed by Rivière & Son at the end of the 1920s, is characteristic of their finest work of the period: crisp gilding, harmonious proportions, and a sensitive integration of illustrative motifs into the design. The retention of the original pictorial endpapers is an especially desirable feature, preserving an important element of the book’s first issue character within an elevated binding.
A charming and highly desirable copy of one of the central works of 20th-century children’s literature - both a cornerstone of the Milne canon and a beautifully presented example of English decorative binding at its best.
Price: $1,250.00