#childrens literature

[laurenillustrated]

Anne Shirley

[rosarrie]

waiting for the rain

[jacenbren]

Please answer this is for science :)

[pemberlaey]

hot girl spring is out. mary lennox spring is in. get in loser we’re frolicking in the garden; we’re talking to birds; we’re getting lost in the heather; we’re wandering gothic manors in the dead of night and discovering secret cousins concealed in attic bedrooms, we’re jumping rope

[arconinternet]

Little Lost Kitten (Book, Lois Lovett & Dale Maxey, 1962)

You can digitally borrow it here.

[stanford-photography]

What if Alice never left Wonderland? By Jeff Stanford, 2023 Buy prints at: https://jeff-stanford.pixels.com/

[wronghands1]

[cinnamonscentedpages]

currently reading Lucy Maud Montgomery again. finally time for me to take my dresses out of the closet, eat pastries and see some beauty in life even when i feel like i have no energy for it, because with Lucy you have no choice but to feel joy and love and all the good things, and i'm just so grateful she wrote the way she did, and that i get to read it

[lestatslestits]

i would love to hear about your 24 copies of the wind in the willows if you feel like talking about it

Anon, I don't think you understand how much I want to talk about this.

I'll start by saying, this order may or may not be a bit confusing, mostly because I'm attempting to group editions together in a way that makes some sort of sense.

Roughly, I'll group them as follows:

Annotated Editions

Vintage Editions

Mass Market Paperbacks

Other Paperbacks*

Small Hardcover Editions*

Other Hardcover Editions*

*Not including editions shown previously

Finally, this will not include abridged editions, retellings, or books that adapt small segments of the text

This is going to be a long post. There will be photos. I'm putting the rest under a cut!

Annotated Editions

I own three separate annotated editions

The Annotated Wind in the Willows, annotated by Annie Gauger

The Wind in the Willows: An Annotated Edition, annotated by Seth Lerer

The Annotated Wind in the Willows: For Adults and Sensible Children (Or Possibly, for Children and Sensible Adults), annotated by GMW Wemyss and Markham Shaw Pyle

These account for a total of six copies, because I have doubles of each of these editions so that I have a "clean" copy and one where I can write my own notes. Currently, I've only managed to add my notes to the Gauger edition. Here's an example of my personal notes (forgive my handwriting, I was having issues with my pen)

The Gauger edition uses illustrations from multiple illustrators, as well as historic photographs. Additionally, this edition has segments on Grahame's life, including copies of the Dearest Mouse letters (the letters that Grahame wrote to his son, Alastair, which eventually formed the basis for Wind in the Willows). The Lerer edition used Ernest Shepard's illustrations, and the GMW Wemyss/Markham Shaw Pyle edition is un-illustrated.

As an aside, I purchased the other two online, but the Gauger edition (well, one of them) was a gift from a dear friend.

Vintage Editions

These copies were all printed prior to the mid 1960s.

This is my most fragile copy. It was printed in 1926, by Metheun (the original British publishers of The Wind in the Willows). I got this edition online from someone who didn't quite seem to know what it was (the listing mentioned J.M. Barrie as the author). I know very little about this edition, but there is an inscription inside that reads "To Jacky, from Elspeth - 1926." This gets a little interesting because Elspeth was the name of Kenneth Grahame's wife, and she was very much alive in 1926. Will I ever know if this edition was given to someone by the Elspeth? Probably not. Examples of her handwriting that I've been able to track down have been very minimal. But it's certainly an interesting thing to daydream about!

I own two (non-annotated) copies with Ernest Shepard's illustrations. Both of these were published in the early 1960s. The first one you see is an ex-library copy that I bought at a Friends of the Library book sale. It was described as being from the first edition with color illustrations, which is hilarious because 1) the illustrations are not colored in this edition and 2) there were at least two other illustrators prior to Ernest Shepard whose illustrations were in color. I nearly ended up in an argument with an elderly lady over this, but I bought it anyways.

The other does have several colored illustrations, which are lovely (originally, Shepard's illustrations were black and white, but later some full color illustrations were added. In my experience, you see the full color illustrations much less regularly). I got this edition online because, at the time, I did not have a Shepard edition.

Ernest Shepard is better known as the illustrator for the Winnie the Pooh stories by A.A. Milne.

The copyright date on this Thrushwood edition is listed as the being from the 1910s, but the inscription is from 1948. I love to purchase copies with inscriptions (or even just the scribbles of kids) inside. This is another edition that I purchased online.

As a note, this edition is illustrated, but I did forget to take a picture of the illustrations. My apologies!

This is another edition from the 1960s. This is my newest (to me) edition, which I purchased online. It was illustrated by Arthur Rackham. This edition has by far the loveliest inscription I've seen (and is the primary reason I bought the book).

My dear Susie, If you like this story one half as much as I do, it will still be your favorite book. Merry Christmas kid. Love, Karen

Mass Market Paperbacks

These are some mass market editions I've acquired over the years. Most of these were purchased from used bookstores, although the Dell Yearling Classic edition was a gift from a friend. The Tor edition has by far one of my favorite blurbs ever.

They're just strange little guys!

Other Paperbacks

This is an edition that I bought online. This particular edition is illustrated by Patrick Benson, who also illustrated the series The Willows and Beyond by William Horwood. This edition has an introduction by Horwood as well, so they definitely feel like a set.

This is a fun one! It's an Illustrate Your Own edition. I bought this one new for obvious reasons. I have doodled in it a bit, but I'll spare you my own drawings.

I got this edition last year from the Strand Bookstore in New York City. This was my first trip to NYC and I looked for The Wind in the Willows in every book store I visited! This cover is one of my favorites: it appears embroidered on the front, and on the inside of the cover you get the messy "back side" of the embroidery. This is such a fun edition and one I had wanted for a while before I found it in a store!

Small Hardcover Editions

I got the top two editions from used bookstores, and they don't have any major illustrations in them. The edition on the bottom came from Barnes and Noble, and it features Nancy Bernhardt's illustrations. Bernhardt was an early illustrator (pre-Shepard!), and her illustrations were very unique (and often a little strange). I prefer her smaller black and white drawings throughout the book, but the full color illustrations are fascinating!

Other Hardcover Editions

And finally, here are some of my very favorites. These are all hardcover editions that I find particularly beautiful.

This edition was illustrated by Grahame Baker-Smith. I love the classic feeling of the cover. There are smaller sepia-toned illustrations, as well as some absolutely unique full color illustrations like the one pictured above. It's one of my favorite illustrations in the book, and one of my favorite illustrations of the chapter "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn." I would kill for a print of this particular illustration. I got this edition at a local bookstore that is no longer in business.

This edition was illustrated by Robert Ingpen, and it's the first edition I really fell in love with. I'm actually not always a fan of illustrators who draw Rat as very mouse-like (more on that below), but Ingpen's illustrations are so beautiful and feel so rich and warm. In particular, Ingpen probably has my favorite illustrations of Badger. I believe this was the first edition that I purchased! (I don't have an exciting story for how I purchased this one, it honestly came from Amazon because I had been given a gift card).

And finally, this edition is illustrated by Chris Dunn. I got this one through a Kickstarter that I funded. I had been dreaming of an English language edition with Dunn's illustrations for years, you have no idea how excited I was when this Kickstarter was launched. Dunn's illustrations are so unique because he is one of the only illustrators who very clearly and distinctly illustrates Rat as a water vole. Although Ratty is called The Water Rat throughout the text, he's actually a water vole, and that often gets lost in modern contexts. Dunn's illustrations are absolute favorites of mine, and this edition is so extremely special to me. It's massive and absolutely gorgeous.

And that's it! I own a LOT of books related to The Wind in the Willows (including a first edition of First Whisper of The Wind in the Willows, a book created by Elspeth Grahame after her husband's death). But going over ALL of my Wind in the Willows collection would make this post even more impossibly long than it already is.

Thanks so much for the ask! I hope you enjoyed this tour and that it's not completely overwhelming or boring.

[laurenillustrated]

A Mad Tea Party 🫖🎩

[rosarrie]

more kidlit art i never posted

[serapiocalm]

❤ Superior Ironman from Marvel VS Capcom.

[arconinternet]

Rewards (Book, stories collected in 1973)

You can borrow it digitally here.

You can digitally borrow other books of this kind from the publisher from the 70's and 80's here.

These illustrations are by Ikki Matsumoto; you can view and buy his art on his official website here.

[stanford-photography]

The Caterpillar By Jeff Stanford, 2023 Buy prints at: https://jeff-stanford.pixels.com/