DONALD DUCK AND HIS FRIENDS, 1937

DISNEY STUDIOS. Donald Duck and His Friends. Racine, Wisconsin: Whitman, 1937. Folio, original stiff pictorial paper boards, pictorial endpapers, staple-bound as issued; pp. [46]. $950.

Early Donald Duck story book, with large black-and-white illustrations on each page.

Donald debuted in the cartoon The Wise Little Hen on June 9, 1934. His first appearance in comics was in the strip adaptation of Little Hen the same year in the Silly Symphonies comic series; he first starred in his own book in 1935. The chief illustrator of Donald Duck, Carl Barks, once confessed, “I always felt myself to be an unlucky person like Donald, who is a victim of so many circumstances. But there isn’t a person in the United States who couldn’t identify with him. He is everything, he is everybody; he makes the same mistakes that we all make.”

Front free endpaper starting. Short closed tear to pages [9]-10; small closed tear and tear with loss to pages 29-30; closed tear to pages 31-32 affecting text and image. Light edge-wear, minor rubbing, soiling and abrasions to boards. An attractive copy in near-fine condition.