Make Way for Ducklings; with: signed bookplate commemorating the 1987 Mallard Family Sculpture
New York: The Viking Press, 1941. Single volume, measuring 12 x 8.75 inches: [68]. Original tan pictorial cloth boards stamped in green, pictorial endpapers, original unclipped color pictorial dust jacket. Lithographed illustrations printed in sepia throughout text. Ink gift inscription to front free endpaper: “To Sandy, Christmas 1941 / from Grandmother Knoll / with dearest love.” Offsetting from binder’s glue at endpapers, fading and edgewear to jacket with stray mark to upper panel. Laid in: unused bookplate commemorating the installation of Nancy Schön’s Mallard Family Sculpture in the Boston Public Garden, dated October 4, 1987, signed by Robert McCloskey.
First edition of one of the most beloved of all American picture books, winner of the Caldecott Medal for 1942. After Mr. and Mrs. Mallard’s eight ducklings hatch on an island in the Charles River, Mrs. Mallard leads the family to shore and through the busy Boston streets to their new home in the Public Garden: “An old lady from Beacon Hill said: ‘Isn’t it amazing!’ and the man who swept the streets said: ‘Well, now, ain’t that nice!’ and when Mrs. Mallard heard them she was so proud she tipped her nose in the air and walked along with an extra swing in her waddle.” First-issue dust jacket, priced at $2.00, with no mention of the Caldecott Award on the flap and no medal affixed. The accompanying signed bookplate, which depicts Mrs. Mallard and her ducklings at the gates of the Boston Public Garden, was issued to commemorate the 1987 installation of Nancy Schön’s Mallard Family Sculpture there. Grolier Children’s 100, 85. A very good first edition, with ephemeral bookplate signed by Robert McCloskey.
Price: $9,500.00