TALE of PETER RABBIT, 1902 COPYRIGHT, 1st ILLUSTRATED END PAPERS

LONDON: WARNE, 1902. 1st Edition 5th Printing. Hardcover. Fine. AUTHOR. The First 2 years of the LONDON Publication of "The TALE of PETER RABBIT" have reference books about the various Printings/evolution of changes. I'm fascinated by it myself. Now, excluding the impossible First Private Printings in Late 1901 & Early 1902 from the realm of possibility for we mere mortals, the First few Original Warne Trade Printings are one of my joys to study - and even more to Find! Most collector's know that the First few Warne Printings (late 1902 - mid 1903) were done with patterned leaf end papers and had 97 pages with all illustrations in Color (Private Printings were B&W). The distinction between the printings was the Board Color. The last of these 4 printings changed "wept" to "shed". NOTE: NONE of These Printings had a COPYRIGHT DATE (on the rear of the Title Page)! Now, here is where it gets interesting!! All References deal with the Change in Format in Late 1903 from 97 pages to 85 pages with 4 fewer Illustrations, and the all important introduction of Color Illustrated End Papers. This is the book that mortals may hope to find and own...one of the first reduced Format (Some refer to it as the Second Edition because of that, but it is essentially the same book with all of the story identical to the Original with that one error correction - I leave such labels to the professionals - but I call it First Edition, Fifth (a) Printing). Now, so as not to get hung up on nomenclature, let's go to the First Printings of this version from Late 1903 to early 1904... The First Printing of this Format (Called the fifth Printing overall) is identified by what are referred to as "SINGLE PAGE ENDPAPERS". That doesn't mean there was only one panel. It means the two panels were identical, not with different characters! That is, they match. It is the ONLY PRINTING WITH THESE, Done in September/October 1903. The one thing that the references do not indicate is which of this run did not have any copyright, and which did!! Whatever the answer is, some were done with No Copyright and some with the FIRST APPEARANCE OF ANY COPYRIGHT, 1902! From what I can discern (and I am no expert here), this Printing is the Only One of these early ones to have had a copyright at all! If I'm wrong, some expert please let me know! Whatever the case, The Next Printing done in December 1903 had DOUBLE PAGE END PAPERS (Different Characters on the 2 panels) This is where my interest wanes...by early 1904 additional printings were essentially the same, but with variations in the characters on the end papers, and that gets tedious to figure out. _____________________________ FOR OUR PURPOSES HERE, if you are interested in a 1903 FIRST ILLUSTRATED END PAPER LONDON PRINTING, with what I believe is the RARE 1902 COPYRIGHT, YOU COULD NOT ASK FOR A NICER EXAMPLE!! It is essentially a Gem, with Lovely Deep Grey Boards, Perfect paste-on FULL SPINE with Bold Lettering to front & spine, all the dots with the o's and the SINGLE END PAPERS. The ONLY flaw in the book is the dated name in the center of the ffep, 1903. Interior Complete in 85 pages, all illustrations and original end papers. REMARKABLY CLEAN, with only issue being slight looseness of binding with a couple of signatures starting to separate (worst shown in images), but there are NO BROKEN THREADS! I do not re-glue books but the binder would easily be brought together by a pro. NO LOOSE or DAMAGED PAGES!