Three original illustrations for Miss Flora McFlimsey and the Little Red Schoolhouse

No place, 1957. Two original published illustrations and one preliminary study by Marian Foster Curtiss, better known as “Mariana,” for her 1957 children’s book Miss Flora McFlimsey and the Little Red Schoolhouse. The drawings depict the encounter between the adventurous doll Flora McFlimsey, described by her creator as “a cross between Queen Victoria and Mae West,” and the brusque and practical Danny Beaver, who questions Flora’s plan to attend school: “It would be much better to stop right now and get a job.” Curtiss’s bestselling Flora McFlimsey series ran to nine titles, published between 1949 and 1972. She drew her heroine’s name from American humorist (truncated) William Allen Butler’s 1857 poem “Nothing to Wear,” which opens with “Miss Flora McFlimsey, of Madison Square.” A lifelong lover of dolls, Curtiss was inspired by her work documenting antique toys and dolls for the WPA’s National Arts Index project. She amassed an extensive personal collection of dolls, and even lived for a time in a refurbished children’s playhouse in East Hampton, where she ran a doll hospital. An attractive group of original drawings by “Mariana.”. Three illustrations on paper. Published color illustration: watercolor and ink stick, image measuring 3.25 x 3.5 inches on sheet measuring 4.25 x 4.75 inches, affixed to larger backing sheet. Registration tape in image margins, old mounting glue to image verso. Published wash drawing: watercolor, ink stick, and grey wash, image measuring 4 x 4.5 inches on sheet measuring 8.75 x 7.5 inches. Faint marginal soiling. Study for wash drawing: graphite with ink stick, image measuring 4.25 x 4.5 inches on sheet trimmed to image. All unsigned, with page numbers penciled to margins; published images with penciled borders. Accompanied by a copy of the first edition, published by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard in 1957, lacking dust jacket. (Inventory #: 1003521)