A Very Special House
New York: Harper & Brothers, (1953). Single volume, measuring 10 x 8 inches: [24]. Original yellow pictorial boards stamped in white, blue and black; black cloth spine; original unclipped color pictorial dust jacket. Printed on yellow paper with illustrations in white, blue, and black. Ownership signature to front endpaper, light spotting to edges of boards, dust jacket with rubbing to spine panel and a few minor scuffs.
First edition of the second collaboration between Ruth Krauss and Maurice Sendak, following A Hole Is To Dig in 1952. A young boy explores the “very special house” of the title, a raucous imaginary place where he and his menagerie of friends go increasingly wild, all yelling for “more More MORE” in a place where “NOBODY ever says stop, stop, stop.” A Very Special House celebrates free expression though play, reflecting the child-centered educational philosophy Krauss studied at the progressive Bank Street Writer’s Laboratory. The first of seven Caldecott Honor awards for Sendak, A Very Special House established his reputation for capturing the volatile energy of a child’s imagination, anticipating Where the Wild Things Are by a decade. First printing, with the boy’s right sleeve printed in blue and the left in white on the penultimate page, in a first-issue jacket priced at $1.75 with “30-60 / No. 9694” on the front flap. Hanrahan A8. An unusually bright copy of this notable early collaboration.
Price: $550.00