children literature

Hardcover. NY, Metropolitan Books, 2nd pr., 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 625 pages, b&w illustrations. The first comprehensive historical biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the beloved author of the Little House on the Prairie books. Millions of readers of Little House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls-the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains, and the woman who wrote the famous autobiographical books. But the true saga of her life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser-the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series-masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder's biography. Revealing the grown-up story behind the most influential childhood epic of pioneer life, she also chronicles Wilder's tumultuous relationship with her journalist daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, setting the record straight regarding charges of ghostwriting that have swirled around the books. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Mild wrinkle to page 243. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Barnes & Noble, reprint, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 194 pages. Includes a bibliography of Bannerman's books and 47 reproductions of the first British and first American editions and her illustrations for them. Phyllis Yuill and Justin Schiller helped with the publishing history and supplied illustrations. Hay shows that it was the illustrations of later artists that provoked the controversy over THE STORY OF LITTLE BLACK SAMBO, not Bannerman's original text or pictures. Bound in the original gilt-stamped red boards. From the dust jacket: "This first biography of Helen Bannerman covers much new ground and is based on the vast collection of letters to the children, usually lovingly illustrated, in the possession of the Bannerman family. As well as telling the story of one of the most popular children's books of all time, Elizabeth Hay's biography offers an intimate picture of the daily life of a British memsahib in the heyday of the Raj." Clean copy.

Chicago, Ivan Dee, 1st US, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 239 pages, in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Author of The Moonstone and The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins has been hailed as "the father of the detective story." His own life story has a similar mysterious ring to it. When Collins died in 1899 he shocked Victorians by dividing his estate equally between two mistresses. He also acknowledged the three children of one of the mistresses as his own. In The Secret Life of Wilkie Collins, William Clarke has pieced together the truth behind this menage a trois, uncovering and exploring, with insight and sympathy, the private relationships of a fascinating writer who was a contemporary of Dickens, Constable, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, and Rossetti. "A literary coup ... casts a fresh beam of light on the great, dark seam of Victorian sexual mores."--The Observer.

Hardcover. London , Macmillan, 1st, 1933, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 268 pages, illustrated with facsimile drawings and 8 collotype plates. Previous owner's inscription on front fly leaf. Blue cloth spine faded.

Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st, 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. SIGNED BY RUSSO on the title page. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls returns to North Bath, in upstate New York, and to the characters that captured the hearts and imaginations of millions of readers in his beloved best sellers Nobody's Fool and Everybody's Fool. Russo, who won the Pulitzer Prize for literature for "Empire Falls", has added this third novel to his stories about life in Bath, New York. It's been about 30 years first novel, "Nobodys fool" that turned into a movie starring Paul Newman and Jessica Tandy (in her final performance) and so a number of the characters are now dead, but their presence echoes through the minds of their children and friends who are now the central characters in "Everybody's Fool." Russo masterfully tells a story about a single weekend in a town that has been consumed by its bigger and more robust town to the north effectively erasing it from maps. His characters are fully developed and by the time we finish the book we know them all well. And we like most of them and even relate to some of them. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1st US, 1969, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, original gold Holt Library Edition sticker to spine, 290 pages. After being jilted by her fiance, a young girl persuades her father to let her enter the business world rather than a convent. A young Renaissance woman defies tradition and wins independence in the world of commerce. Edith Martha Almedingen (1898-1971), was an Anglo Russian novelist, biographer, children's author and member of the Royal Society of Literature. Published originally in England in 1956. Bookplate on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Softcover. Washington, Library of Congress, 1st thus, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 139 pages, illustrations in b&w. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to wrappers.

Hardcover. Sydney, Austalia, P.I.C., 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 48 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Color Illustrations by Robert Ingpen. Clean, tight copy. This children's picture story, a detective mystery, is about a Siamese white elephant, en route from Siam to Britain as a gift to the Queen, and which disappears in New Jersey. This is one of the author's most hilarious, but overlooked, masterpieces for any child or adult to enjoy. The life-like illustrations are by international illustrator, Robert Ingpen. The literature classic was originally published in 1882 as a short story.

Hardcover. Milan, Mondadori, 1st, 1945, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 6 unnumbered pages including the inside of both covers. Publisher's thick pictorial boards backed in white cloth-patterned paper & saddle stapled. Lightly soiled, edges slightly rubbed, otherwise very good. A nice example with all flaps and concealed color illustrations in perfect working order. Three stories of birds each with it's own open-the-flap text and graphic art. Laid in is a typed English translation of the text. Bruno Munari was "one of the most celebrated names in twentieth century Italy in graphic designing who fundamentally altered the landscape of many fields of visual arts, futurism and modernism He is credited for his contribution to industrial design, sculpture, painting, literature, film and concrete art." A collector's copy of this scarce title.

Hardcover. NY, Dial Books, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket, 300 pages, b&w illustrations. The children's book author has won the Newberry Medal and National Book Award. Now in these fascinating stories from her life, she reveal the origins of her book characters from events in her life; from China with missionary parents to single life in Japan to life in Maryland with four children. Filled with personal photos and letters. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton, 4th pr., 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 462 pages. Maria Tatar's The Annotated Brothers Grimm celebrates the powerful cultural legacy of the stories collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm --tales that have enchanted children and adults alike for generations. The volume includes over forty of the Grimms' most beloved stories, including: Rapunzel * Hansel and Gretel * The Brave Little Tailor * Cinderella * Little Red Riding Hood * The Robber Bridegroom * Briar Rose * Snow White * Rumplestilskin * The Golden Goose * The Singing, Soaring Lark * The Frog King * The Juniper Tree * and Mother Holle. With over 150 paintings and drawings from the most celebrated fairy tale illustrators, including George Cruikshank, Paul Hey, Walter Crane, Warwick Goble, Kay Nielsen, and Arthur Rackham. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 445 pages. Through the woods with Hansel and Gretel, out to the ball with Cinderella and into the ocean with the Little Mermaid, this volume takes us down the familiar paths of our folklore heritage. Maria Tatar's Annotated Classic Fairy Tales celebrates the powerful cultural legacy of fairy tales and provides an invaluable storytelling archive for children and adults alike. The volume includes twenty-six stories, along with annotations and sumptuous images. Among them are: Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, The Story of the Three Little Pigs, Master Cat or Puss in Boots, The Story of the Three Bears, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Little Match Girl, The Princess and the Pea, The Ugly Duckling, The Little Mermaid. With over 300 paintings and drawings in full colour throughout by Ivan Bilibin, Edward Burne-Jones, Walter Crane, George Cruikshank, Gustave Dore, Edmund Dulac, Kay Nielsen, Maxfield Parrish and Arthur Rackham. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Knopf, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dustjacket 320 pages. With almost 5 million copies sold in the 60 years since it was published, generations of readers have journeyed with Milo to the Lands Beyond in this beloved classic.This richly annotated edition includes bonus material from acclaimed children's literature scholar Leonard Marcus. Enriched by Jules Feiffer's splendid illustrations, the wit, wisdom, and wordplay of Norton Juster's offbeat fantasy are as beguiling as ever. The expansive annotations include interviews with the author and illustrator, illuminating excerpts from Juster's notes and drafts, cultural and literary commentary, and Marcus's own insights on the book. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Norton, reprint, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 396 pages. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the quintessential American fairy tale. Michael Patrick Hearn, the world's leading Oz scholar, now provides a fascinating new annotation that not only reacquaints readers with the Tin Woodman, Scarecrow, and Cowardly Lion, but also illuminates the colorful background of this treasured American classic. This edition explores numerous contemporary references, provides character sources, and explains the actual meaning of the word "Oz." A facsimile of the rare 1900 first edition appears with the original drawings by W.W. Denslow, as well as 25 previously unpublished illustrations. There is a bibliography of L. Frank Baum's published work, every notable "Oz" edition, and the stage and cinematic productions from 1939's The Wizard of Oz, to the 1974 Broadway hit, The Wiz. A beautiful, awe-inspiring work, The Annotated Wizard of Oz is an enduring tribute to the timeless joy of The Wizard of Oz, and a classic to rival Baum's own. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Faber and Faber, 1st, 1939, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, green cloth with gilt lettering on spine, 292 pages, b&w plates. An affectionate and mostly literal account of the early years of Williamson's growing family, based in part on a series of articles called 'Tales of My Children' which he had contributed to 'Family' in 1935. With a frontispiece and sixteen photographs by the author. Mild shelf wear, clean copy.

Hardcover. Winchester UK, St. Paul's Bibliographies, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 142 pages. Mary Elliott (then Mary Belson) began writing for children in 1809, at a time when increasing literacy and wealth and more progressive understanding of the reading needs of children were creating a growing demand for more and more books for young people. Beginning with two books in verse - one a lively tale about town and country mice, the other, an anthology including many of her own poems - she went on to produce a stream of books on a variety of subjects. Her stories, some eventful and exciting, were mostly about real children learning to tackle the everyday circumstances and difficulties which they encountered in the world around them. These books were made all the more attractive by her publisher, William Darton, who provided them with entertaining illustrations, many of them interesting today for their depiction of contemporary scenes and fashions. Mary Elliott's books soon spread across the Atlantic, and American publishers reissued many of them, sometimes adapting the text to local circumstances. Although her books are now forgotten, they cannot be disregarded by researchers into the history of childhood and of children's literature. This bibliography contains about 470 entries. Clean.

Hardcover. Athens GA, University of Georgia Press, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 145 pages, b&w illustrations. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket.

Softcover. UK, Cambridge University Press, reprint, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 231 pages, b&w illustrations. The Chinese peoples' experience of war during the Second World War, as it is known in the West, was one of suffering and stoicism in the face of dreadful conditions. China's War of Resistance began in 1937 with the Japanese invasion and ended in 1945 after eight long years. Diana Lary, one of the foremost historians of the period, tells the tragic history of China's war and its consequences from the perspective of those who went through it. Using archival evidence only recently made available, interviews with survivors, and extracts from literature, she creates a vivid and highly disturbing picture of the havoc created by the war, the destruction of towns and villages, the displacement of peoples, and the accompanying economic and social disintegration. Her focus is on families torn apart, men, women, and children left homeless and struck down by disease and famine. It is also a story of courage and survival. By 1945, the fabric of China's society had been utterly transformed, and entirely new social categories had emerged. As the author suggests in a new interpretation of modern Chinese history, far from stemming the spread of communism from the USSR, which was the Japanese pretext for invasion, the horrors of the war, and the damage it created, nurtured the Chinese Communist Party and helped it to win power in 1949. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Dutton, 1st US, 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a price-clipped dust jacket. A memoir of the real Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh. An attractive copy of Christopher Milne's book about the origins of the Pooh stories, his childhood, and his family. Previous owner's inscription, sticker on front fly leaf.

Hardcover. NY, Nicholas Brealey, 1st US, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 326 pages. In this far-ranging quest, award-winning author Nicholas Jubber unearths the lives of the dreamers who made our most beloved fairy tales: inventors, thieves, rebels and forgotten geniuses who gave us classic tales such as 'Cinderella', 'Hansel and Gretel', 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'Baba Yaga'. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Abrams, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 400 pages. Edith Nesbit (1858-1924) is considered the first modern writer for children and the inventor of the children's adventure story. In The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit, award-winning biographer Eleanor Fitzsimons uncovers the little-known details of her life, introducing readers to the Fabian Society cofounder and fabulous socialite who hosted legendary parties and had admirers by the dozen, including George Bernard Shaw. Through Nesbit's letters and archival research, Fitzsimons reveals "E." to have been a prolific lecturer and writer on socialism and shows how Nesbit incorporated these ideas into her writing, thereby influencing a generation of children--an aspect of her literary legacy never before examined. Fitzsimons's riveting biography brings new light to the life and works of this famed literary icon, a remarkable writer and woman.

Softcover. The Woodlands,TX, New Century Books, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 210 pages. With a typewritten letter laid in containing an inscription and the author's signature, "Tom". The Man Who Was Dr. Seuss is the first major personal and literary biography of Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel. It describes the origins of the rhyme scheme he used for many of his books; his views of international justice; the morals for children in his books; why parents are seldom seen in Dr. Seuss books and finally, among fabulouse facts and fanciful fables, how and why Dr. Seuss eventually became an American icon. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Julian Messner, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, glossy pictorial boards, 96 pages, b&w illustrations. A memoir by the children's book author. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 99 pages, illustrated throughout in color by Gennady Spirin. Pages without illustrations are decorated with elegant and delicate borders. Faux marbled endpapers. Translator Brodmann has been celebrated in her native Germany for her work with juvenile literature. Stated first printing. Clean, bright copy.