THE TALE OF MRS. TITTLEMOUSE by Potter, Beatrix - 1910

1910. London: Frederick Warne and Co., 1910. Original blue-grey paper-covered boards with hexagonal pictorial onlay.

First Edition of Beatrix Potter's tale about a wood-mouse named Thomasina Tittlemouse. The tale tells of her attempts to keep her underground home neat and tidy in spite of various unexpected visitors ("friends" they were called in the manuscript: this was changed to "visitors" in the book, but even more appropriate would be "intruders"). These include bees, a beetle, a ladybug, a butterfly, a spider and of course the debonair toad Mr. Jackson. The manuscript also included three wood-lice, but Warne objected that such creatures did not belong in a children's book; so they are instead described as "three creepy-crawly people" in the book. There were actually two printings during (and dated) 1910, but they are identical; the third was not until 1911. Customers were given the choice of buying MRS. TITTLEMOUSE in blue-grey or cream paper-covered boards priced at 1/-, or in decorated cloth priced at 1/6. For this title the pictorial paste-down endpapers were revised to their present-day design, showing Mrs. Tittlemouse and a bee in the upper right corner of each paste-down. This is a fine, attractive copy, with scarcely any wear at all (spine very slightly darkened). Linder pp 205-207 and p. 429; Quinby 18.