SENDAK, Maurice (illustrator). The Nutshell Library; Alligators All Around; Chicken Soup With Rice; Pierre, a cautionary tale; One Was Johnny. New York. Harper & Row, Publishers. 1962.
24mo. 4 volumes, housed in original pictorial card slipcase; original pink cloth bindings lettered in purple to spine, with oak leaf device to upper covers; each in pictorial dustwrapper and collected in the slipcase; pp. [32]; [v], 6-30 + [i]; [iv], 5-48; [47]; each work illustrated throughout in colour by Sendak; a fresh set in equally nice dustwrappers with light rubbing, small nicking and shadowed darkening to lower panels of 2 books; the slipcase with minor abrasion to corners.
First edition, as published in the U.S., without the price sticker of $2.95 on the slipcase which remains on some boxes and sets the seal on the first edition status. It is generally recognised that sets in pink cloth bindings are first editions; later editions use variant coloured cloth. This miniature set comprises an alphabet, a counting book, a book of months and a cautionary tale.
#2118574