Mother Goose (Hodder & Stoughton, [1920]) | Jessie Willcox Smith

Mother Goose

illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith
Hodder & Stoughton Limited, 1st edition [1920]

A collection of nursery rhymes charmingly illustrated throughout by American illustrator Jessie Willcox Smith (1863-1935).

Hardback. Publisher’s red cloth with title in black to spine and front board, decoration in black, white and blue to spine and front board, plus colour onlay plate to front. pp viii, 160, including b/w illustrations plus twelve tipped-in colour plates. Size: 10 x 7.5 inches approx. (252mm x 192mm).

Covers a little marked in places, light wear to extremities, small dent to rear board, but overall cloth and onlay plate very clean and bright. Pencilled name to front free endpaper; heavy offsetting to recto side of frontispiece mounting page, and final page; pages age-toned and especially to plate pages, some grubby marks or dustiness thoughout, occasional corner creasing or wear, however generally pages reasonably clean; edges of page-block a little grubby, spotting/foxing with some encroachment onto page margins, bottom edge of block is splash stained but has only crept onto bottom edge margin of rear endpaper; page-block a little shaken and some pages edges a little rolled and worn.

Overall, showing some wear commensurate with age and handling otherwise remaining a particularly nice, bright copy – quite lovely..

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References

[B15] Edward D. Nudelman, Jessie Willcox Smith A Bibliography (Pelican Publishing, 1989)