“YOU CAN FLY! YOU CAN FLY!”: FIRST EDITION OF DUMBO, 1941, INSCRIBED BY WALT DISNEY

(DISNEY, Walt). Walt Disney's Dumbo of the Circus. (Garden City): Garden City Publishing, (1941). Large quarto, original half red cloth, pictorial boards, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom chemise and half morocco slipcase. $23,500.

First edition of this storybook adapting Disney’s beloved tale of the flying elephant, which Disney himself said was his personal favorite, generously illustrated from the film cels in color and black-and-white, inscribed on the half title: “To Susan with best wishes, Walt Disney.”

On its 1941 release, Dumbo won rave reviews as "the most genial, the most endearing, the most completely precious cartoon feature film ever to emerge from the magical brushes of Walt Disney's wonder-working artists… A film you will never forget" (New York Times). Based on Dumbo the Flying Elephant (1939) by Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl.

Book with only a few spots of soiling to interior, minor ink bleeding to "To Susan" in inscription, hinges starting, and a bit of soiling and wear to extremities of paper boards. Bright dust jacket with light wear to extremities with two one-inch closed tears to front panel. An extremely good copy, most scarce inscribed.