Roly-Poly Pudding, The
London: Frederick Warne & Co., 1908. Item #06742
“From the Author of ‘Tom Kitten’”
The Presentation Copy Sent by Beatrix Potter to the Little Girl Who Asked
What Happened to Tom Kitten
With Potter’s Three-Page Autograph Letter Explaining the Gift
POTTER, Beatrix. The Roly-Poly Pudding. London: Frederick Warne & Co., 1908.
First edition, second printing, one of 5,500 copies printed in December 1908, with the date “1908” on the title-page but with the words “All rights reserved” omitted from its foot.
Small quarto (7 7/8 x 6 1/4 inches; 200 x 158 mm.). [8], 69, [1] pp. Color frontispiece, color pictorial title-page, and seventeen additional full-page color illustrations by Beatrix Potter; thirty-eight black-and-white text illustrations.
Publisher’s original red cloth woven with mixed light and dark threads over beveled boards, front cover pictorially stamped in gilt and light green with mounted color illustration, spine lettered in light green. Color pictorial endpapers (Quinby Plates V and VI). On the verso of the title-page is a small red stamp “Autograph / Collection,” beneath which is written in pencil “September 1955 / Gift / Mrs Warren Gleason.” “177252” stamped in black, with additional pencil notations “G/. Case / J/F/Pot.” Printed bookplate of The Robbins Library on front pastedown. Small area (3/4 x 2 3/8 inches) of surface loss at upper right corner of front free endpaper where a label has been removed. A near fine, bright copy.
Inscribed by Beatrix Potter on the half-title: “For Mrs Gleason’s little daughter from the author of ‘Tom Kitten.’
March. 11.12.”
Preserved at the end of the volume is Potter’s original three-page autograph letter signed, written through Frederick Warne & Co. from 15 Bedford Street, Strand, together with the original addressed envelope associated with the correspondence. Also preserved on the rear free endpaper are the original Robbins Library ticket holder and ticket.
The letter explains the charming circumstances that led directly to Potter’s presentation of this very copy. Mrs. Warren Gleason had written to Potter because her young daughter wanted to know what happened to Tom Kitten and she had been unable to discover the title of his sequel.
Potter replies:
“I was much amused and pleased to hear that your children (or I should say your little girl) has been inquiring after Tom Kitten. I wrote the sequel some time ago, but this large book is not stocked by shops to the same extent as the small series - So I am sending a copy as a present and remembrance for the little girl.”
Potter continues with characteristic warmth:
“I am writing rather a longer story for next year, which the girl of 8 will doubtless read. When boys get to 11 or 12 they have outgrown them.” Apologizing for the delay in answering, she adds a revealing glimpse of the demands upon her time: “I have such shoals of letters I get behind hand, being a busy person, apart from the books.”
The letter is signed simply: “Yours sincerely, Beatrix Potter.”
Mrs. Gleason subsequently recorded in pencil the circumstances that had prompted her correspondence:
“Received Mar. 21, 1912. Wrote to Miss Potter as I couldn’t find out at any bookstore the name of the sequel to ‘Tom Kitten.’”
The surviving envelope is addressed in manuscript to: “Miss Beatrix Potter 15 Bedford Street Strand London, England
c/o Messrs. F. Warne & Co.”
Its direction to Potter, rather than from her, strongly suggests that this is the envelope in which Mrs. Gleason’s original inquiry was sent to the author, rather than the envelope in which Potter’s reply was returned. If so, its survival is especially appealing: it represents the very correspondence that initiated Potter’s letter and presentation of the book.
Potter’s choice of wording in the presentation inscription is particularly charming. Rather than merely signing her name, she gives the book to Mrs. Gleason’s little daughter “from the author of ‘Tom Kitten’” - directly answering the child’s inquiry after the character. The inscription and accompanying letter thus form a single narrative: a young American reader asks what became of Tom Kitten; Potter hears of her inquiry, is “much amused and pleased,” and sends the elusive sequel herself.
Mrs. Gleason later presented the volume, together with the Potter letter and associated envelope, to the Robbins Library in Arlington, Massachusetts, where it entered the library’s Autograph Collection and was exhibited for many years in the Children’s Department “Glass Case.” The surviving library bookplate, presentation notation, Autograph Collection stamp, glass-case markings, and circulation pocket and ticket provide unusually extensive evidence of the volume’s long institutional history. In 2012 the archive was deaccessioned through the Robbins Library’s charitable partner, More Than Words, and subsequently passed into private hands.
Published originally in October 1908, The Roly-Poly Pudding occupies a distinctive place in Potter’s bibliography. Unlike the familiar miniature-format Peter Rabbit books, it was issued in a substantially larger format, giving Potter greater scope for some of her most ambitious and atmospheric illustrations.
The story reunites readers with the irrepressible Tom Kitten, who, after hiding in a chimney, falls into the clutches of the rats Samuel Whiskers and Anna Maria, whose alarming intention is to transform the unfortunate kitten into a “roly-poly pudding.” Inspired in part by the very real problem with rats Potter encountered at Hill Top, the tale combines domestic comedy, menace, and suspense in one of the most memorable of her longer narratives.
In 1926 the work was reissued in the familiar smaller format under the title The Tale of Samuel Whiskers or The Roly-Poly Pudding.
The accompanying letter provides particularly valuable contemporary evidence concerning the reception and distribution of Potter’s larger-format books. Potter herself explains that although she had written Tom Kitten’s sequel some time before, “this large book is not stocked by shops to the same extent as the small series.” Mrs. Gleason’s inability to locate the sequel through booksellers was therefore precisely the difficulty Potter recognized. Rather than merely supplying its title, Potter personally selected, inscribed, and sent this very copy across the Atlantic as a gift to the child who had asked for Tom Kitten’s further adventures.
Presentation copies of Beatrix Potter’s books are uncommon; examples accompanied by an autograph letter documenting why that particular copy was presented are considerably rarer. Here the presentation inscription, Potter’s three-page letter, Mrs. Gleason’s contemporary explanatory note, and the original envelope associated with the correspondence together preserve the story of the book’s presentation in remarkable detail.
The volume is therefore much more than an inscribed copy. It records an exceptionally charming exchange between one of the greatest children’s authors and one of her young readers: a little girl asks what happened to Tom Kitten, and Beatrix Potter answers by sending her Tom Kitten’s sequel herself.
Provenance: Beatrix Potter, presentation inscription dated March 11, 1912; Mrs. Warren Gleason and her daughter, Roslindale, Massachusetts, recipients, with Potter’s accompanying autograph letter and the original envelope associated with Mrs. Gleason’s inquiry; presented by Mrs. Gleason to the Robbins Library, Arlington, Massachusetts, September 1955, and preserved in its Autograph Collection and Children’s Department Glass Case; deaccessioned in 2012 through the library’s charitable partner More Than Words; private collection.
Linder, p. 427; Quinby 15.
Price: $16,500.00