A Bouquet Of Rhymes For Children

New York: Bonnell Silver. Good with no dust jacket. 1909. Hardcover. Cover stains, edgeworn, spine darkened, 1" scrape to front cover, endpapers tone with foxing, Christmas 1909 gift inscription, otherwise light wear. Solid oversize hardcover. ; Six color plates, ABC head pieces, title decoration, covers bouquet, pup drawing on last text page - all by Isabel Whitney. "The verses in this attractive book for children have been prepared with utmost care, taking the flowers, the rain, the sun, the moon and various other nature studies and weaving them into entertaining verses for young children. The illustrations are also attractive, being life studies in color. There is also an attractive alphabet in color, with a nature study on each page." - The New York Observer, March 31, 1910, page 394. Most strikingly, the illustrations are by Isabel Lydia Whitney, the painter and muralist. This early work is the only children's book illustrated by her listed in E Lee Baumgarten; Price Guide and Bibliographic Check List for Children's and Illustrated Books 1880-1870, and I can find no mention of any other book illustration work, although she studied with Howard Pyle, and Arthur Wesley Dow at the Pratt Institute. Althea Randolph was an obscure poet from New Jersey whose work was published in Women's Magazine and Ladies Home Journal. Her well-reviewed 1914 children's poetry book, A Shower of Verses, is often her only credited poetry book, such as in Reardon. She had earlier published in 1914 with the same publisher as A Shower of Verses a juvenile girls' fiction, Jeannie's Journal or, Two Years at Boarding School. The publisher, Bonnell Silver, went bankrupt in the early 1910s, and A Bouquet of Rhymes for Children has only two copies present in WorldCat. This is a delightful and markedly scarce illustrated children's rhyme book. ; Drawings; (ii), 29, 6 pl pages .