Comical Customers, First Edition (3 results)

First edition. Original cloth backed glazed pictorial boards. A very good copy, with some wear to the boards and rubbing to the corners. Gift inscription to the ffep. One page with a torn corner. Tipped in chromolithograph frontispiece and numerous black and white illustrations throughout by various artists including Beatrix Potter, Louis Wain, and W. Foster. The most significant contribution is nine line drawings by Beatrix Potter (signed HBP) to accompany a verse entitled "A frog he would a fishing go". There is also a full page black and white image after a pen and gouache drawing by Potter, to accompany "The Story of Violante and the Silver Sixpence". These illustrations, which had their genesis in a picture letter to Eric Moore of September 1893, were offered (and after some horse trading, sold) to Nister in 1894. Potter had hoped Nister would publish them as the contents of a small booklet, but Robert Mack of Nister had replied that, "people do not want frogs now. The only way we could use it would be as a double page in our 'Annual'.". The illustrations duly appeared occupying three pages accompanying the verse "A Frog he would a fishing go", by another author. In due course Potter bought back the copyright (and blocks) for the illustrations and developed them to be published in 1906 as The Tale of Jeremy Fisher. The separate full page image depicts two young kittens looking in a shop window being watched by the shop keeper, knitting in the doorway, over which is the sign, "Squintina Tabby / Licensed to sell / Tea". The image carries the caption "What shall we Buy?". Leslie Linder's The History of the Writings of Beatrix Potter shows a rough sketch of the old tabby (facing p.179), noting that it was "for a picture sold to Ernest Nister". An original version of this image was sold as part of the property of Bertram Potter at Sotheby's July 2008. Comical Customers is now extremely scarce. Cotson (Potter) 562;

First edition. Original cloth backed glazed pictorial boards. A good copy, with some wear to the corners and spine a sizeable chip torn from the corner of the front end paper. Internally fresh and clean. Tipped in chromolithograph frontispiece and numerous black and white illustrations throughout by various artists including Beatrix Potter, Louis Wain, and W. Foster. The most significant contribution is nine line drawings by Beatrix Potter (signed HBP) to accompany a verse entitled "A frog he would a fishing go". There is also a full page black and white image after a pen and gouache drawing by Potter, to accompany "The Story of Violante and the Silver Sixpence". These illustrations, which had their genesis in a picture letter to Eric Moore of September 1893, were offered (and after some horse trading, sold) to Nister in 1894. Potter had hoped Nister would publish them as the contents of a small booklet, but Robert Mack of Nister had replied that, "people do not want frogs now. The only way we could use it would be as a double page in our 'Annual'.". The illustrations duly appeared occupying three pages accompanying the verse "A Frog he would a fishing go", by another author. In due course Potter bought back the copyright (and blocks) for the illustrations and developed them to be published in 1906 as The Tale of Jeremy Fisher. The separate full page image depicts two young kittens looking in a shop window being watched by the shop keeper, knitting in the doorway, over which is the sign, "Squintina Tabby / Licensed to sell / Tea". The image carries the caption "What shall we Buy?". Leslie Linder's The History of the Writings of Beatrix Potter shows a rough sketch of the old tabby (facing p.179), noting that it was "for a picture sold to Ernest Nister". An original version of this image was sold as part of the property of Bertram Potter at Sotheby's July 2008. Comical Customers is now extremely scarce. Cotson (Potter) 562;

First Edition. The first published appearance of Beatrix Potter's 'Froggie' Ten years before 'The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher' [POTTER, Beatrix], [WAIN, Louis], illustrators. [WEEDON, Lucy L.] & [BINGHAM, Clifton]. Comical Customers At the New Stores of Comical Rhymes and Stories. London: Ernest Nister, [1896]. First edition. Quarto (10 x 8 1/8 inches; 254 x 206 mm.). [1-48] pp. Mounted color frontispiece, numerous black and white line drawings throughout the text by Louis Wain, W. Foster and others. The penultimate story in the book by C[lifton] B[ingham] 'A Frog he would a fishing Go' illustrated with ten charming line drawings, nine of them by Beatrix Potter, each one signed 'HBP'. The book also contains a separate full-page illustration of "Sqintina Tabby" to accompany "The Story of Violante and the Silver Sixpence", after a pen and grisaille drawing heightened with gouache by Potter. Beatrix Potter's uncle Sir Henry and Aunt Lucy Roscoe owned a cat called Squintina or Squinty. Potter's frog illustrations appeared in two collections by Nister this year: the present publication and the Holiday Annual. Original dark blue cloth backed glazed pictorial boards. Pale blue floral endpapers. The front cover with a very colorful scene depicting four young cats visiting the local [cat] storekeeper. Contemporary pencil ownership inscription on half title dated 1896. Extremities of boards a little worn otherwise an excellent copy of this extremely scarce Beatrix Potter/Louis Wain item.