The Robber Kitten

94 pages with 22 color illustrations including frontispiece. Duodecimo (5 3/4" x 4 1/4") issued in original purple with red cloth spine and black lettering, color pictorial to front cover. Illustrations by John Rea Neill. Early reprint. In 1904 Altemus published the first six books of a series of fairy tale books that would prove to be an extremely popular and a very long running series. "An entirely new series of books for children, especially adapted for Christmas or birthday gifts" Altemus Catalogue 1904-1905. These books had three different formats. The first is the scarest while the third is more common. As time went on, Altemus discontinued most of its other fairy tale books to concentrate on this group of books. New books were added year and spin-off series combined into one large umbrella listing. (Later, after Henry Altemus went out of business, Platt and Munk reprinted many of the books.) This work is from the format III series. The earliest format III books (1918-21) had blank endpapers. In about 1922-1923 the endpapers appeared green illustrating a group of fairy tale creatures dancing around a circle. Between 1923 and 1926 the endpapers were blue. In about 1926 the color changed to grayish. In 1931-2 the endpapers became brightly multicolored. This continued until 1933. The end papers in this edition are green. The listing of ads is through The Little Puppy that Wanted to Know Too Much (Henry Altemus Company) John Rea Neill was a magazine and children's book illustrator primarily known for illustrating more than forty stories set in the Land of Oz, including L. Frank Baum's, Ruth Plumly Thompson's, and three of his own. His pen-and-ink drawings have become identified almost exclusively with the Oz series. He did a great deal of magazine and newspaper illustration work which is not as well known today. Condition: Spine ends rubbed, some sun toning to edges, one signature sprung; jacket soiled, chips to corners, fold over edges, hinges and spine ends else about very good in a good to very good scarce jacket.