THE TALE OF LITTLE PIG ROBINSON

Philadelphia: David McKay Company, 1930. First US edition. Fine in near fine jacket.. First US edition of this charming prequel of sorts to Lear's "Owl and the Pussycat," the final book in the Peter Rabbit series - in rare blue cloth binding. Though published at the end of her career, mention of THE TALE OF LITTLE PIG ROBINSON first appears in a letter from 1883, when Potter was only 17 - before all the other tales for which she is more famous. When seeking another story to feed her hungry publishers (she famously struggled with creating art "on demand"), Potter unearthed this early story and revised it for publication. Coming off the heals of THE FAIRY CARAVAN - which Potter uncharacteristically offered first to the US David McKay Company rather than her usual UK publisher Frederick Warne & Co., causing more than a little editorial distress for the Warnes - she supplied the text and illustrations for LITTLE PIG ROBINSON to McKay and Warne at the same time. The Warnes, though, according to Potter, were "inclined to save expenses at the expense of the appearance of the book" (Morse, 36-37), and cut out many of her black-and-white illustrations for the title; McKay happily accepted the 25 extra illustrations, and included them in their edition.
In her landmark A HISTORY OF THE WRITINGS OF BEATRIX POTTER, Leslie Linder identifies the US edition as the first; Margaret Lane (133) and Jane Quinby (102) claim that the Warne and McKay editions were published simultaneously. However, in reviewing WHITAKER'S CUMULATIVE BOOK LIST for 1930 and the CATALOG OF COPYRIGHT ENTRIES FOR THE YEAR 1930, we find that Warne's copyright for the title dates to October 1930, and McKay's dates to November 1930.
This is a particularly attractive copy, rare in this style of blue cloth with bright original dust jacket. 8.5'' x 6.5''. Original blue cloth boards with pictorial paste-on. In original unclipped (no price) dust jacket with pictorial paste-on. Pictorial endpapers of sailing ships. Color frontispiece with 5 color plates, black-and-white line illustrations throughout. 141, [2] pages. Jacket with mild edgewear, a bit of bumping to corners and spine ends; 1" closed tear to lower spine, with tiny tape repair to verso. Binding with a touch of shelfwear. Sharp.