Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
Hodder and Stoughton, 1906.
First edition. 4to. Russet cloth with gilt titles and vignettes. Map of Kensington Gardens on the front free endpaper. Colour frontispiece and 49 further colour plates by Arthur Rackham. Each plate is mounted onto brown art paper and protected by a captioned tissue guard. Apart from the frontispiece all plates are grouped together after the text. A very good copy indeed, clean and bright with a little wear to the spine ends and joints. A few spots of foxing to the preliminary leaves, generally very fresh.
This is the first edition of Barrie's classic children's tale and also Rackham's most important work.
In 1902 J.M. Barrie wrote the novel "the Little White Bird", the central chapters of which tell of a child named Peter Pan, "who escaped from being a human when he was seven days old... and flew back to Kensington Gardens." This part of the story was then developed by Barrie and the first book to appear with the title of Peter Pan was this 1906 version to which Arthur Rackham provided 50 magnificent colour illustrations.
A contemporary review of this book published in "The World" reads "Mr Barrie has done what no one else has done since the inventor of "Alice", he has invented a new legend, a modern folk story which comprehends all the innermost secrets of the modern child, be he four or forty. Mr Rackham, for his part, has been bewitched in his cradle: he does not dream of fairies or hobgoblins, he knows them."
Stock ID: 41592
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