Water Babies by Kingsley, Charles - 1924

This is a 1920s reprint of the first octavoA edition of Water Babies with the beautiful full page, full-color Goble illustrations. There's a catch: the rare and expensive 1909 quarto edition has 32 plates, whilst all subsequent editions (such as this one) have 16. I usually like to trade in books with the same full complement of plates as the first edition. I'm loose about that with Goble because his first edition books have often never been reprinted in full, leaving us to get the Goble we can, and not always the Goble we want or deserve. Red buckram boards and spine with pictorial gilt on front board. Top edge gilt. Sixteen full-page plates, including frontis, all present and in fine shape except the one facing page 35, which has come unbound and suffered some chipping on the top and right edge of its border. Book is solidly bound, straight and square. Some kid (Anita Newell) clearly enjoyed this book. Shelf and corner wear and spine cloth torn at the front board, but holding on as if by magic or ancient hide glue repair, but probably not magic because I can see the hide glue. Anita or her brother (Robert) augmented the book's frontmost end papers with transfers of animals which have not weathered the years as well as the Goble plates. Sunned spine speaks of long residence on a shelf. Bright and beautiful front cover gilt illustration.