The Sea Fairies

by L. Frank Baum Publisher : Reilly & Britton Year : 1911 Edition : First Printing : First Condition : Very Good Price : $789.95

Item Description :

Reilly & Britton, 1911. A "Borderland of Oz" book (the other one is Sky Island). L. Frank Baum (celebrated author of the Oz books): The Sea Fairies. 12 color plates with iridescent red and green accents, as well as many black-and-white illustrations by John R. Neill. Publisher, Scarce. This book meets all the points in Hanff & Greene for 1st Edition 1st State: 1) publisher's advertisement on verso of ownership page lists 5 titles ending in John Dough and the Cherub; 2) endpapers illustrated in color; 3) 12 color plates with iridescent red and green embellishments and with no typset captions, all in the appropriate places; 4) sea-green cover; 5) color paste-on cover illustration showing Trot among the seahorses, with red and green title lettering, and metallic gold background; 5) spine lettered in green with a picture of a fish in red and green; 6) publisher's name on spine reads "Reilly & Britton;" 7) last 2 lines pg. 95 and lines 14 & 15 pg. 105 transposed. Note: the metallic red and green embellishments on the plates and the metallic gold back ground on the front cover don't shown up well in the scans, but they actually are still bright and very nice. Condition of book is Very Good. Cover shows some wear around edges, and cover illustration is slightly rubbed but the colors and the metallic gold background are still bright. Printing and illustration on spine are only slightly faded. Binding is medium-tight, front hinge is just starting to split and back hinge is split but not separating, and appears to have been neatly repaired. Front fixed endpaper has a patch of light discoloration. All this is shown in scans. Name written neatly in ink on ownership page, otherwise no handwriting in book. No foxing, no torn pages. 13 black-and-white illustrations have been colored with crayon by a former little owner and I have shown one in a scan. The last 8 plates have a light water-stain at the top outside corner, and this is shown in scans. One plate has a crease and small closed tear at bottom outside corner. In spite of these minor flaws, the plates, with their metallic red and green accents (some of which are forest green and some of which are gold-green), look beautiful. A few light smudges but pages are overall quite clean.



Images :

Rare Library collection . . . more than 40 years in the making . . . available now for the first time ... each item in the collection was individually researched and secured based on its own merits - Rare Books, First Edition Books, Signed Books, and Antique Books.
RARE BOOKS INCLUDING : FIRST EDITIONS . SIGNED and ANTIQUE BOOKS . ART and COLLECTIBLES