60 Great Books Bauman Rare Books - 52 - “Among The Best Ever Written For Children”: Large-Paper Signed Limited First Editions Of The Four Pooh Books, All In Original Dust Jackets 50. MILNE, A.A. The Four Pooh Books: WhenWeWere Very Young; Winnie The Pooh; NowWe Are Six; The House At Pooh Corner. London, 1924-28. Four volumes. Large, square octavo, original half cloth, dust jackets, custom chemise and half morocco slipcase. $60,000. Large-paper signed limited first editions on handmade paper of A.A. Milne’s four wonderful Pooh books, each signed by both Milne and Shepard, in original dust jackets. “One would have to search far and wide to find fictional characters as beloved to so many readers… Winnie-the-Pooh’s adventures are not only arguably the greatest toy fantasies ever written for children, they are also, simply and undeniably, great literature” (Silvey, 461-63). Shepard’s endearing illustrations enhance Milne’s whimsical verse and prose; they “add so much to the books that most people consider them to be inseparable from the texts” (Silvey, 462). When We Were Very Young, the rarest of all Pooh books, is number 92 of only 100 copies; Winniethe-Pooh is number 192 of 350 copies; NowWe Are Six is number 151 of 200 copies; and The House at Pooh Corner is number 71 of 350 copies. With a publisher’s advertisement laid in for the related songbook Fourteen Songs. All four books fine. Dust jackets extremely good to near-fine, with sunning to spines of first three books, tape reinforcement to verso of Winnie the Pooh, light foxing and most minor edge-wear to dust jacket of The House at Pooh Corner with expert repair to small chip of front panel. Sold separately and extremely rare individually, this lovely set is most rare. “Pooh, the Bear of Very Little Brain; the melancholy donkey Eeyore; the irrepressible Piglet; the irresponsible Tigger… are known and loved in innumerable homes.” -Frank Eyre
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