(Children's Books / Golden Age Illustration / Picture Books) HUMPHREY, Mabel. THE BOOK OF THE CHILD; with facsimilies of drawings in color by Jessie Willcox Smith and Elizabeth Shippen Green.
New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1903. FIRST EDITION; published in October, 1903. Folio - 15" x 14". [30] leaves printed rectos only. Bound in gray-green cloth backed color pictorial paper covered boards with titles printed in black, and featuring a detailed full color drawing of a small child reading a copy of the book to both front and back covers. Plain endpapers. The volume is illustrated with seven full-page chromolithograph plates (four by Green and three, plus the cover illustration, by Smith) depicting young children at rest, work, or play, alongside several small black, orange, and white drawings within the text by the same two illustrators. The stories and verses were written by Humphrey specifically for these drawings.
The physical condition of the item is graded VERY GOOD + (utilizing the standard antiquarian book grading scale for works on paper). The binding remains amazingly clean with just light scattered soiling and minor wear to the extremities, the heaviest wear being localized to the two lower fore edge corners and to the bottom edge of the front cover, making this a superb copy of this beautiful book. Internally, the leaves and plates are without flaw.
Early Twentieth-Century American Juvenile Illustration and the Brandywine Legacy
The Book of the Child represents a landmark artistic collaboration between two of the most celebrated figures of the Golden Age of American illustration, Jessie Willcox Smith and Elizabeth Shippen Green. Having both trained under the legendary master Howard Pyle at the Drexel Institute, the artists absorbed his philosophy of narrative-driven composition and luminous color theory before establishing their famous shared studio at the Red Rose Inn. Originally conceived from a series of calendar designs titled The Child, this magnificent production marks a pinnacle in turn-of-the-century commercial color printing, translating their delicate treatments of childhood into exceptionally large, vibrant chromolithographic plates. The accompanying verses and short stories by Mabel Humphrey—sister to illustrator Maud Humphrey—were tailored precisely to harmonize with the visual moods of the artwork, capturing the gentle, idealized domestic innocence of the era.
Series Bibliography, Census, and Market Scarcity
Because of its exceptional folio size, heavy reliance on large individual leaves, and intended audience of young readers, The Book of the Child was highly susceptible to structural damage, page tearing, and handling to destruction by young readers. Unmarked, internally flawless copies are exceptionally scarce on the market, particularly given the fragile paper surfaces of the large boards which typically suffered from heavy edge abrasions, deep corner bumping, and severe surface scuffing. While heavily worn specimens can be encountered in commerce, copies that preserve both clean exterior imagery and flawless interior plates represent a remarkable market survival.
THIS REMARKABLE FIRST EDITION SPECIMEN OF THE BOOK OF THE CHILD, RETAINING ITS SPARKLING CHROMOLITHOGRAPHIC PLATES AND BRILLIANT PICTORIAL BINDING, REPRESENTS A CRITICAL ACQUISITION FOR INSTITUTIONAL SPECIAL COLLECTIONS OR EXTRAORDINARY PRIVATE COLLECTIONS DEVOTED TO THE HISTORY OF CHILDREN'S LITERATURE, THE BRANDYWINE SCHOOL OF ILLUSTRATION, OR THE EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN FINE PRINTING FOR CHILDREN.
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