Search Results: Authors starting with P from Sumner & Stillman

1899. Two pages of stationery printed with the address "17 R Street, Corner | New Hampshire Avenue" [Washington DC]. Dated by hand "June 4, 1899". The text of this letter reads as follows: I have waited to answer your letter of a week or two ago. I refer to its receipt [?] because I did not know what to say. I am, however, now engaged in writing a story which I believe would meet your requirements and which I might arrange to let you have. It is a racing-story, of a kind which I think will be sufficiently original to attract notice. It will be between 5000 & 10000 words. Such a story I should charge an American Magazine for from $500.00 to $1000.00 according to length. I do not know what you would expect to pay for the English Magazine rights; but I should have to arrange with the American Magazine for its publication by you in Eng'd, and I should want enough to make up for any deduction the Edition on this side might claim for such contemporaneous publication on your side. I sh'd also want to know… Read More

1899. Two pages (first and third pages of one folded leaf of stationery printed with the address "20, Carlton House Terrace, S.W." Dated by hand "5th May '99". The text of this letter reads as follows: Herewith I send you a programme of tonight's affair. You will witness that your name is on the list, but the programme was printed before we had word that you preferred not to speak. The hour of reception is six o'clock, when in the name of the Club, my wife and myself will welcome you. I hope you may find the evening interesting. Your kind words about my tale have given me great satisfaction. With all respect I am Yours sincerely [signed] Gilbert Parker. Though not specifically referenced in this letter, this correspondence has to do with The Anglo-Saxon Review -- a short-lived "quarterly miscellany," created and edited by Lady Randolph Churchill (her son Winston served as an advisor), published by John Lane in handsome leather-bound volumes with elaborate gilt tooling. The new periodical sent out an… Read More

1935. Racine, Wisconsin: Artists and Writers Guild, n.d. [ca 1935]. Original color-pictorial spiral-bound flexible card covers. First Artists & Writers edition (spiral-bound) of what many consider to be Maxfield Parrish's ultimate achievement in book form. The oversize (12" x 10") plates, in luminous color, are magnificent. This A&W edition is often described as having been published in 1925, because the book's only date, is where it reads "Copyright 1925 by Charles Scribner's Sons." However, this Artists and Writers edition was published a whole decade later -- in 1935-1936, and in Poughkeepsie not in Racine. The original (first) edition was indeed published by Scribner in 1925 -- a regular hardbound book. Western Printing Company of Racine Wisconsin had acquired Whitman Publishing in 1916, to issue inexpensive juvenile books; in the early 1930s, Western also acquired Artists and Writers Guild of Poughkeepsie, New York -- not a "guild" at all, but a printer then specializing in playing cards and… Read More

1971. London and New York: Frederick Warne, (1971). Original white cloth pictorially decorated in color, with matching dust jacket. First Edition, published 28 years after the author / illustrator's death. The Foreword by Leslie Linder explains that Potter wrote this in 1906, and the plan was for it to be a third title in panoramic (or concertina) form -- after FIERCE BAD RABBIT and MISS MOPPET. But the booksellers complained that they were having trouble re-folding those books after people perused them, and SLY OLD CAT was put off numerous times over the subsequent years. It involves a cat who invites a rat to a tea-party -- the latter of whom fears he might be intended as dessert. This is a fine copy in a fine jacket. See Linder p. 434 (SLY OLD CAT was published in the same year as the Linder bibliography).

1913. London: Frederick Warne and Co., 1913. Original grey-green paper-covered boards with cover pictorial onlay. First Edition of the author's nineteenth book, her second title (after THE TALE OF MR. TOD) to appear in the "New Series" that was unfortunately issued in a binding almost as fragile as the earlier titles. THE TALE OF PIGLING BLAND was most probably in Beatrix Potter's mind as early as 1910... This story about Pigling Bland has an element of truth in it, for on November 17th 1909, in one of Beatrix Potter's letters... she wrote "The two biggest little pigs have been sold, which takes away from the completeness of the family group. But they have fetched a good price, and their appetites were fearful -- five meals a day and not satisfied." Both the first and the second printing bear the date 1913 on the title page, and "are believed to be identical" [quotes from Linder]; the third is dated 1914. This copy is grey-green in color; others are in maroon (no priority). This is a near-fine copy,… Read More

1944. With Decorations by J.J. Lankes. Boston: The Horn Book, 1944. Original light brown buckram printed in red, with front cover plate, with dust jacket. First American Edition. This edition, and Warne's UK edition, were published shortly after this tale's first appearance in the 20th Anniversary Number of The Horn Book (Boston, May 1944). Although Beatrix Potter did not write WAG-BY-WALL itself until 1940-1943, its roots went way back: in 1909 she had originally conceived of the tale (involving a singing kettle and "Wag-by-wall," a magical clock), with a working title of THE LITTLE BLACK KETTLE. She re-wrote it in 1929 (as "Wag-by-the-Wa'") for inclusion in THE FAIRY CARAVAN -- but it was left out, so more than a decade later, she revised it yet again for The Horn Book. She completed it in the autumn of 1943, but agreed with The Horn Book to hold it for their anniversary issue -- which unfortunately turned it into a posthumous publication, as she died three days before Christmas 1943. (Thus the… Read More

1909. London and New York: Frederick Warne and Co., 1909. Original light brown boards with cover pictorial onlay. First Edition, first state, of the author's fourteenth book, which like her first includes Peter Rabbit and Mr. McGregor. Copies were available to the public in green or light brown paper-covered boards at 1/-, or in decorated cloth at 1/6. This copy is in light brown paper-covered boards, and is in the primary (and usual) state, with the p. 14 illustration that includes the "...Gardens neatly razed..." notice-board. (There were three printings, all dated 1909, indistinguishable from each other except that this notice-board was removed after the first or second printing.) This is a clean, near-fine copy (a trace of wear at the spine ends) of this fragile volume. Linder p. 428; Quinby 16.

1911. London: Frederick Warne and Co., 1911. Original dark green paper boards with arched pictorial onlay. First Edition of these adventures of Timmy Tiptoes (and his wife Goody), grey squirrels trying to get nuts collected and stored up for the oncoming winter. Timmy is wrongly accused of stealing other squirrels' nuts and is thrown through a tree-hole into his and Goody's nut storehouse -- where he gets sidetracked and eats so many of the nuts that he becomes too fat to get out. The presence of chipmunks and a bear in this tale have led to speculation that the author had American children in mind when she wrote and illustrated this book. Customers could buy TIMMY TIPTOES in either light brown or dark green paper boards, priced at 1/-, or in decorated cloth, at 1/6. This copy is in dark green boards, and is near-fine (scarcely any external wear, minor cracking at one end of the front endpaper -- which bears an "Xmas /11" inscription). This is remarkable condition for fragile paper-covered boards… Read More

1911. London: Frederick Warne and Co., 1911. Original dark green paper boards with arched pictorial onlay. First Edition of these adventures of Timmy Tiptoes (and his wife Goody), grey squirrels trying to get nuts collected and stored up for the oncoming winter. Timmy is wrongly accused of stealing other squirrels' nuts and is thrown through a tree-hole into his and Goody's nut storehouse -- where he gets sidetracked and eats so many of the nuts that he becomes too fat to get out. The presence of chipmunks and a bear in this tale have led to speculation that the author had American children in mind when she wrote and illustrated this book. Customers could buy TIMMY TIPTOES in either light brown or dark green paper boards, priced at 1/-, or in decorated cloth, at 1/6. This copy is in dark green boards, and is in near-fine condition (very slight wear at some extremities). Linder pp 208-209 and p. 429; Quinby 20.

1912. London: Frederick Warne and Co., 1912. Original light grey paper-covered boards with front cover color plate. First Edition of Beatrix Potter's eighteenth book, and the first title to appear in the "New Series" that was unfortunately issued in a binding almost as fragile as the earlier titles. Unlike Beatrix Potter's earlier books, the principal characters are villains! and in the opening paragraph we get a hint of this fact. When sending Warne some of the book drawings, Beatrix Potter referred to the one about the fight between [the fox] Mr. Tod and [the badger] Tommy Brock [on page 86] -- which she found difficult to draw: "You will see a very confused one of the combat. I could hardly shirk one picture of it; but it was difficult to work out in detail so I made it dark." [Linder] This copy is in light grey boards (buff was another option -- no precedence). It is in near-fine condition (spine slightly browned as always, a couple of small edge-chips in the front-cover plate). Linder pp… Read More

1956. New York: Frederick Warne & Co. Inc, (1956). Original beige cloth lettered in blue, with dust jacket. First trade edition, first printing, following a 100-copy UK printing in 1955 for copyright purposes. Written in early 1907, this is a story about two pigeons, Mr. Vidler and his wife Amabella -- the latter of whom, trapped in a chimney while fleeing a hawk, is forced to nest there where she is befriended by a resident mouse. This is a copy from the first printing (the leaves measuring 155mm in height), and is in fine condition -- as is the dust jacket. Linder pp 337-346 & p.432; not in Quinby, which was published in 1954.

1917. London: Frederick Warne and Co., n.d. [1917]. Original green-grey boards lettered in red, with front cover pictorial onlay. First Edition, first or second printing (indistinguishable from each other) -- but in later-state binding. Most of these rhymes are Beatrix Potter's own, but also included is "You know the old woman who lived in a shoe?". She first did illustrations for that rhyme as early as 1893, and she and Warne planned a volume of illustrated verse soon after PETER RABBIT made such a hit in 1901-1902. However it kept getting set aside for other volumes, and then Norman Warne died in 1905, and the project was dropped for a dozen years -- when in 1917 Fruing Warne asked her for another story and she did not have one. (Five years later there would be another volume of rhymes, CECILY PARSLEY'S NURSERY RHYMES.) The first two APPLEY DAPPLY printings came out in October and November 1917; the third printing did not come out until 1919-1920. Though all three are undated, the third is… Read More

1929. Philadelphia: David McKay Company, (1929). Original dark green cloth with front cover pictorial onlay. First Edition of this collection of tales outside of the "Peter Rabbit" series, about a traveling circus that was invisible to humans. According to her Preface these tales "were not meant for printing... I send them on the insistence of friends beyond the sea [i.e. Alexander McKay]." Beatrix Potter did not wish for an English edition of THE FAIRY CARAVAN, because she felt that the stories were 'too personal -- too autobiographical' to publish in [that] country [Linder]. Thus the first edition was this American one (100 sets of the McKay sheets, with a different first section, became "Beatrix Potter's Limited Edition" in the UK -- to secure copyright there); it was not until 1952 that a UK trade edition appeared, almost a decade after the author's death. Included are six color plates including the frontispiece, plus another on the front cover; there are also numerous drawings within the text,… Read More