Pleasing Pastimes (4 results)

Half-Leather. Condition: Very Good. x, 780 pages. Colour frontispiece, b/w plates and 906 text illustrations. Rebound in a half leather binding. Rare edition for Australia and New Zealand.

pp. x, (ii), 884. Frontispiece and nearly 900 engravings. Original green cloth gilt and decorated, both joints repaired, some old ink scribbles on the verso of the front free end-paper which has offset to the recto of the frontispiece and bled through a little.

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. 6 inches by 9 inches. [8] ff., printed on one side only. With 22 hand-colored engravings of children at play. Original pictorial green paper wrappers, stitched, with publisherÕs ad printed on rear wrapper. First and last leaves pasted down to insides of wrappers, as issued. Some toning to wrappers. Small piece missing from rear wrapper, just slightly touching the text of the ad. Some toning and dust-soiling throughout, as well as a previous ownerÕs scribbles (mostly in pencil, some in ink) on a few pages. Ink signature of ÒMaster E.J. HoughÓ on first page. One page reinforced on blank recto. Still a good, bright copy of a fragile and scarce item.

Pleasing Pastimes depicts games and activities for children with accompanying descriptive verse. The activities include playing marbles, skating, leapfrog, and fishing. The present item was published as one of the thirteen volumes in the ÒBrother SunshineÕs New SeriesÓ by Dean & Son. The other titles, as listed on the rear wrapper, include classics like Old Mother Hubbard, Cinderella and the Glass Slipper, and Jack and the Beanstalk, as well as slightly macabre Death & Burial of Cock Robin and various less-common titles. 6 inches by 9 inches. [8] ff., printed on one side only. With 22 hand-colored engravings of children at play. Original pictorial green paper wrappers, stitched, with publisherÕs ad printed on rear wrapper. Some toning to wrappers. Small piece missing from rear wrapper, just slightly touching the text of the ad. First and last pages pasted down to insides of wrappers, as issued. Some toning and dust-soiling throughout, as well as a previous ownerÕs scribbles (mostly in pencil, some in ink) on a few pages. Ink signature of ÒMaster E.J. HoughÓ on first page. One page reinforced on blank recto. Still a good, bright copy of a fragile and scarce item. First edition, dated Ò12, 55Ó (December 1855) at bottom margin of lower wrapper. Copies were also printed with a later date of Ò8, 56Ó (August 1856). OCLC lists only two copies of the present 1855 edition (at the University of Michigan and the British Library) and three copies of the 1856 edition (at Yale, Princeton, and the University of Melbourne).