TALE OF PETER RABBIT by Potter Beatrix - 1904

Philadelphia: Henry Altemus Company, 1904. The True First Edition published in America. Pirated by Altemus, and due to the fact that Warne failed to secure the American copyright for the book in a timely manner. With 31 finely produced colour plates, and cover paste-down decoration by Potter. 12mo, publisher's original cloth backed pictorially illustrated boards, the upper cover with the cloth decorated and printed in green with a colour pictorial illustration of Peter Rabbit's mother and siblings, illustrated end-leaves 127 pp. A rather worn copy, the covers and spine panel show rubbing to the boards and wear to the cloth, free-fly and blank at the beginning and end of the text-block excised, some occasional minor closed tears at the outer margins of a small number of leaves, occasional pencil drawings on the blank recto or verso of some leaves, unused small bookplate at the front pastedown, a representative and usable copy of the first edition printed in America. This was the first entry in Potter’s popular “Tales” series that would eventually consist of twenty-three titles. The first edition of this book has become quite scarce, especially in collectible condition.
Ms. Potter first conceived of the story of Peter Rabbit in a letter written to entertain a sick child in 1893. Eight years later she borrowed back the letter with the idea of publishing the tale, but could not find a publisher interested in Peter. It was while working on a privately published edition that she began negotiating with Frederick Warne. The privately published editions consisted of only 450 copies total, so are very rare indeed.
This first published edition was the first to be illustrated in colour, as the private edition was all black and white with the exception of the frontispiece. Warne sold out immediately and began the reprinting process almost right away. In time “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” would become the best selling children’s book in history.
In America, because Warne was so slow to the gate, Altemus pirated the work before Warne could establish copyright and published the book in the format as presented here. One can establish the priority of the printing history and affirm this as the first edition published in America by referencing the henryaltemus site on-line.