Lot 1331

BAUM, L. FRANK. 1856-1919.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Chicago & New
York: Geo. M. Hill Co., 1900.
Sold for US$ 87,500 (THB 2,873,960) inc.
premium
AUCTION DETAILS
FINE BOOKS & MANUSCRIPTS
New York
11 Dec 2013 10:00 EST
Auction 21029

LOT DETAILS
Children's Books from Europe & America
BAUM, L. FRANK. 1856-1919.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Chicago & New
York: Geo. M. Hill Co., 1900.
4to. 24 color plates and illustrations throughout
by W.W. Denslow. Original pale green cloth
stamped in green and red. 3 plates detached,
offset from previously attached clipping to
publisher's advert page, cloth with some faint
soiling and stray spots, but an excellent copy
overall, superior to most copies encountered.
FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, IN FIRST STATE
BINDING WITH UNSERIFED GREEN SPINE
IMPRINT, ONE OF ONLY TWO KNOWN
COPIES SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY BOTH
THE AUTHOR AND THE ILLUSTRATOR, WITH
ORIGINAL SIGNED DRAWING of Miss Edna B.
Wilkins, the subject of the inscription in oral
printed dress and fancy hat by Denslow. See
preceding lot for a description of the
acquaintance between Denslow and the Wilkins
family.
The only other double-signed presentation copy
of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz known to us is
the Charles Warren Stoddard copy in the
Houghton Library at Harvard.
The complex printing history of the original
George M. Hill edition has been hotly debated for
years. Jacob Blanck in Peter Parley to Penrod
(1938) identied three printings of the rst edition:
States X, Y and Z. The major distinction between
the three states was the copyright page. (The "Y"
state may have been merely a mixed copy.) No
doubt due to the haste in which the book was
produced in 1900, Hill unfortunately printed
Denslow's pictorial copyright page on the verso
of the "Introduction" rather than on the verso of
the title page as required by law. Some copies, as
is the case with the present copy, left the
publisher before the mistake was discovered. To
correct the error, Hill had the verso of the title-
page of remaining copies rubber stamped with
the copyright notice: "Copyright 1899/By L. Frank
Baum and W. W. Denslow./All Rights Reserved."
It is in the earliest state binding with the
publisher's spine imprint in unserifed dark green
with the "C" and "O" printed separately rather
than as a unit, known in only a few surviving
copies. It also contains the earliest state of the
color plates with mistakes intact: two blotches on
the moon, facing p 34; and a red horizon line,
facing p 92. When the book went back to press
in late 1900, many of the textual errors were
corrected (including the copyright notice printed
in its proper place) and the publisher's spine
imprint was printed in serifed green or red. Mixed
state copies resulted from the binding of earlier
sheets with the later printing. This copy
comprises State A of the text sheets, color plates
and binding cases with all textual errors as
described in Riley, A Bookbinder's Analysis of
the First Edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,
2011, pp 26-29 and 35-47. Denslow inscribed it
the month of publication and then had Baum add
his autograph. See also Hanff & Greene I.I.A.
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