Annabel

I filled one of the gaps in my collection of books by L. Frank Baum this week, by picking up a copy of the first edition of Annabel, from 1906. I've been keeping an eye out for this title for quite a while, and when this copy popped up on eBay at the don't-blink-now price of $13, I was thrilled to be able to add it to the bookcase!


Annabel was Baum's first pseudonymous novel for young adults, written under the name Suzanne Metcalf. I already had a copy of the 1912 second edition, which was issued with a new cover design, different interior art, and a new spelling of the author's first name (Susanne rather than Suzanne). I blogged about that copy a couple years ago.

One of the fun elements of the first edition is the cover label, which is die-cut in the shape of a bow. An interesting point that I hadn't realized, is that the paper stock used for this label is the same heavily textured paper used five years later on the cover label of The Sea Fairies. Annabel seems to have held up better than many copies I've seen of Sea Fairies, which tend to suffer from heavy rubbing of the cover label.