The Pie and the Patty-pan

London: Frederick Warne and Co, 1905. First Edition. Boards. Very good. Beatrix POTTER. Edmund Evans, The Racquet Court Press, Swan Street, London S.E., [printer.] First edition, Hofer variant boards. 12mo (7 1/8" x 5 ½"); 51 [1]pp; brownish maroon boards, stamped-white border and title, color portrait of a cat onlaid to front within a white-stamped frame; mottled lavender endpapers; partial bookseller's ticket to foot of rear pastedown; gift inscription to half-title dated 1905; frontispiece plus 9 color plates, 21 vignettes in b&w; light spotting and rubbing to boards, ½" crack to foot front hinge, some finger marks; very good. Quimby No. 9 (Hofer). Linder. The first of Beatrix Potter's books to be published in this larger format in order to increase the size of the illustrations. From 1930 and on, the book was published in the smaller format to bring it into size with the other Potter books. Rushing into publication, Potter had no pictorial endpapers ready, so early editions are bound with the mottled lavender. The story scene is set in Sawrey, the village that she loved, and many of the illustration backgrounds were sketches of nearby homes. A lovely story about a cat named Ribby and a dog named Duchess.