DickyDidos

London: Grant Richards, 1903. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. First printing, folio size, 94 pp. A charming story of a fantasy trip taken by two little children to the land beyond the rainbow called Dickydidos, where all the children were neat and tidy, with a goose as the magistrate and a prim-looking woman with a cane, "Miss Keepemneat"....and where the "houses were made of barley sugar with chocolate windows and doors..."

Per the web site of the V&A: "William Graham Kidd (1874-1955) was an artist, illustrator and designer of Scottish descent. Born in Leith, he was apprenticed to an architect but in the 1890s moved to London to pursue a career in interior design. Around the beginning of the twentieth century he had established a reputation for wall coverings and fabrics featuring themes from popular nursery rhymes and produced work for a number of well-known clients, including Liberty & Co. and the Lancashire wallpaper manufacturer, C. & J.G. Potter."

At some point Kidd turned his artistic talents to book illustration, of which this is one. Containing twenty-two boldly-coloured chromolithographed plates printed on one side only, with the text pages facing (also printed on one side only).

___DESCRIPTION: Paper-covered boards with a blue cloth spine, the front board with an illustration by Will Kidd, a publisher's list of "Books For Children" facing the title page, title page illustration mirrors that on the front board; folio size (13" by 9 3/4"), pagination: [1-8] 9-94 (note that the publisher's page count includes the endpapers as well as the blank pages).

___CONDITION: Very good overall, the interior near fine, the colours bright, the pages mostly clean with a few light smudges, and collates complete; the binding good only, with prior repairs to the front board (to close a tear at the top of the front board and mend the lower front corner, the boards with overall wear, the corners well-rubbed and several gutters beginning to crack.

___CITATION: Baumgarten, Author, p. 119.

___POSTAGE: Please note that this is an unusually large heavy book and additional postage may apply, please inquire for details.

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