A Visit to William Blake’s Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers
New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981. Slim quarto, measuring 10 x 8 inches: 45, [1]. Original beige cloth spine stamped in gilt over blindstamped terracotta boards, original clipped color pictorial dust jacket with no Newbery Medal or Caldecott Honor Seal, ivory speckled endpapers. Color illustrations throughout text. Light spotting to cloth spine. With: publisher’s promotional bookmark.
First edition of the poet Nancy Willard’s dreamlike tribute to William Blake, illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen. Inspired by the childhood babysitter who recited “Tyger, Tyger” to her, Willard imagines Blake as an innkeeper with a staff of dragons and angels, and a tiger asleep on his hearth. “On windy days and moonless nights, / Blake wears a suit of shifting lights. / The tailor now has grown so clever / he stitches light and dark together.” A Visit to William Blake’s Inn won the Newbery Medal for 1982, and was named a Caldecott Honor Book that year as well: it remains the only book to receive both Newbery and Caldecott honors. A near-fine copy, accompanied by original publisher's promotional bookmark featuring a detail from “A Rabbit Reveals My Room.”.
Price: $100.00