first edition Hardcover
1937 · New York
by CHALMERS, Audrey
New York: Oxford University Press, 1937. Hardcover. Good. First edition. Illustrated by the author. Small square octavo. Modest stains, foxing and rubbing on the boards, a good copy without dustwrapper. Tale of a baby hippopotamus. [With]: Original brass binding die stamp for the spine of the book. Approximately .50" x 7.5". A little tarnished, else about fine. The die reads (in reverse lettering): "Birthday of Obash / Audrey Chalmers / Oxford". The provenance presents a mildly interesting story: a local colleague was buying books out of the trunk of a gentleman's car and came across a bag of brass die-stamps from the Oxford University Press from the late 1930s through the early 1950s, when Oxford did much of their printing in the U.S. My colleague inquired and the gentleman revealed that his next stop was the scrap yard where he was going to sell the dies to be melted down for the brass. My colleague paid him double the scrap price for them. We paid a bit more. In any event, a unique artifact from this charming pre-war children's book. (Inventory #: 407265)