A PUZZLE FOR A CURIOUS GIRL.

London, printed by C. Squire for Tabart & Co, 1806.. A New Edition (3rd) 1806, 140 x 90 mm, 5½ x 3½ inches, original roan backed marbled boards, gilt lettered and ruled spine, pages: 119 + 5. Pretty engraved frontispiece (girl hugging mother). 12 attractive half page engravings. Boards very worn, corners rounded, head and tail slightly worn, 10 mm (½") split to foot of lower hinge, lacking front endpaper, pale stain to top corner of frontispiece, affecting background only, joint between title and page 1 cracked, name at top of title page, early notes on blank verso of title page, margins thumbed, occasional slight soiling, tiny corner missing on page 1, small hole in 1 text page with loss of a couple of letters, couple of 10 mm closed margin tears. Decent working copy. Moon, Tabart, No. 91; Gumuchian 2636 and see Osborne I,316 where a comment by Mrs Field is reproduced: 'The chain of results which spring from a child's idea that her mother is keeping a secret from her, her guesses at the mystery and statements to other people, are followed with most genuine cleverness, ending in the completion and circulation of a perfectly probable, but very unpleasant and wholly untrue story among the gossips of the neighbourhood'. (The Child and his Book). MORE IMAGES ATTACHED TO THIS LISTING, ALL ZOOMABLE, FURTHER IMAGES ON REQUEST. POSTAGE AT COST.