Carl Grabo's
Peter and the Princess was published by Reilly and Lee in 1920, and has all the features of an elaborately produced gift book of the time. It was sold in a box, used gold stamping on the cover and spine as well as gilt page edges, and had tissue guards placed over each color plate bearing captions for the images. And the images! Counting the cover, endpapers and title page, along with 8 additional inserts, there are 11 lovely watercolors by John R. Neill - making this one of his most elaborate color plate books since the days of
The Emerald City of Oz. Sadly, there are no black and white text illustrations.
This copy is presumably a later variant of the book, as it is not as elaborately produced. The gold stamping and page edges are gone, there are no tissue guards, and most interesting, the cover image has changed. The picture used is the same as the book's frontispiece, and the original cover image is gone from the book. Another example of the variations to be found in books published by Reilly & Britton/Lee!
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5 comments:
Hi Bill,
I've seen the later, plainer variant before, but I swear it had the same cover label as the earliest issue. But I don't have any of the later versions to check. Even worse, I seem to recall seeing one without any label at all... Now I will have to pay extra attention!
Inseresting that Reilly and Lee was still capable of producing an elaborate book in 1920.
So pretty, need to pick this one up someday. How is the story?
Paul - I picked this up for the variant binding, and didn't fully register the cover plate change until I pulled out the earlier copy - it seems to me that I've also seen the later cover without any cover plate as you mention...
Scott - It does seem late timing for a more elaborate boxed presentation, but Reilly & Lee was still producing things like the boxed Christmas Stocking Series, at this point...also the slipcased Twinkle Tales.
Anil - It's been a while since I read the book, but I don't recall it being anything too exciting - I'll have to run through it again!
The book was also a childhood favorite of Eloise Jarvis McGraw. She was four or five when the book was published. She had no idea of there being an Oz connection either.
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