Pads Paws & Claws

New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. Hardcover. Good/No Dust Jacket as Issued. 8 3/4" x 11. Edwin Noble. GOOD / NO DUST JACKET. Former library book. No date, but good evidence of being pre-1925. viii, 124 pp. plus frontispiece [with tissue cover sheet intact] and 15 pages of tipped in color plates. Additional black and white etched illustrations on table of contents page and beginning and ending of each chapter. Printed on brown paper that has darkened with age, but pages are completely free of marks or damage. The color plates are beautiful: colors are still fresh and vivid. Library treatments inside front cover and on flyleaf; one ink stamp on ToC page along with some pencilled notes. Pencilled notes indicate acquisition date was January 16, 1925; publication date must be somewhere between 1911 (1st printing in England) and 1925. Boards covered with illustrated paper on front and back cover; light blue cloth on spine. The evidence of the book's age is on the outside: corners are bumped, worn to boards, top and tail of spine also bumped, all edges are worn. Edwin Noble color illustration on front is undamaged, however, and while slightly shelfworn, there are no significant scrapes or stains on either cover. Back cover has an etching illustration and the logo of the original British publisher, both incorporating the blue of the spine. Binding is tight and solid. While literally rough around the edges outside, the interior, especially the illustrations, is well preserved.