100 Years / 100 Books: Highspots of Collectible Children's Books from 1863-1963

By Helen Younger (Alephbet Books)
Copyright © Firsts Magazine, Inc.
Used by permission.

The world of collectible children's books has come of age. Although children's books have always been collected, it is only within the last ten years that they have blasted into the consciousness of the book collecting world in general and even into the minds of the non-collecting public. It now goes without saying that great first edition collections should also include firsts of classic children's literature as well.

A bit of explanation and a few caveats about this list are in order. The books included here are not necessarily representative of the best literature for children, but rather a list of what is currently collectible. Collecting in this field is no different than collecting in any other field; it is subject to fads. Fifty years ago Jacob Blanck included on his list of the best loved American children's books Peter Parley to Penrod, two titles by John Townsend Trowbridge. Today, you'd be hard pressed to find any collector who is familiar with his name at all. In several cases, and for the sake of brevity, only one book by an author/illustrator has been included. Thus you will find Tom Sawyer but not Huckleberry Finn or you will see Winnie the Pooh but not When We Were Very Young.

You may also notice the absence of traditional "series" books which, although they are children's books, fall into a class of their own and thus are not included here. Using the hundred year parameter of 1863-1963 necessitated excluding some landmark figures. On the early end notably missing are Edward Lear, Hans Christian Andersen, Grimm Brothers, Charles Perrault, Heinrich Hoffmann and Nathaniel Hawthorne. On the modern side, Chris Van Allsburg is not included. These restrictions were necessary in order to keep the size from becoming unmanageable.

1863 marked the publication of Charles Kingsley's Water Babies, one of the first "modern" fantasies for children. One hundred years later in 1963 Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are" sealed his name forever in the annals of collectible books. Almost every title listed has a "story" attached to it; printing histories, issue points and first edition determinations all factor in heavily. Naturally, the best place to hear these stories is to start with a specialist dealer in the field. For instance, you would wait a long time to find an 1865 British Alice but then you'd need that time to accumulate the funds to afford it. However a collection can do just fine with the American printing from the British sheets or with the 1866 British "first published" Alice and that is where expert guidance can help. If you're just beginning, you will also need advice on criteria that determine collectible condition, including the importance or unimportance of dustwrappers. As a general rule, children's books must be in very good-fine condition, but the same rigorous standards used in modern literature are really not applied here. Many of these titles are perfectly collectible without dustwrappers and if they do have dustwrappers, the fact that the wrapper may be chipped, torn or incomplete is not of great consequence. In other words, if you find a first issue of Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz but the dustwrapper is soiled and worn, don't wait around for a "better" copy - just grab it and run! However, if you are offered first editions of Winnie the Pooh or Charlotte's Web without dustwrappers, take a pass. Without beating a dead horse, a children's book specialist dealer will have had the experience to know which books are collectible in any condition and which need to be mint to have value.

If it can be said that there is a "problem" with collecting children's books, it is that the field is so broad and varied that one might not know where to begin. The list of "highspots" that follow should help address the challenge. This list can be used as an end in itself or used as a jumping off point to collect in any of the thousands of directions to which it may lead.

 

Here's the List

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This article first appeared in Firsts: the Book Collector's Magazine, Volume 3, No. 12. Copyright © by Firsts Magazine, Inc. No portion of this article may be reproduced or redistributed without their express written permission.

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