“WHO SAYS I CAN’T SWIM?”: FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST DONALD DUCK BOOK, 1935
DISNEY STUDIOS. Walt Disney's Donald Duck. Racine, Wisconsin: Whitman, 1935. Slim folio, original pictorial paper self-wrappers, staple-bound as issued; pp. [16].
First edition of the first Donald Duck book published, with large color illustrations on every page by the artists of Walt Disney Studios.
"Donald Duck made his first appearance on June 9, 1934 in the Silly Symphony [cartoon] The Wise Little Hen… His popularity was soon to equal and surpass that of Mickey Mouse" (Munsey, 110). This book, with large color illustrations on every page, follows the irascible quacker on an ill-fated trip to a swimming hole with Mickey's nephews. Donald's principal illustrator, Carl Banks, 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." Munsey, Disneyana, 178.
Color illustrations vivid, pages with occasional light soiling. Mild sunning and soiling to wrappers, short closed tear to rear wrapper. An extremely good copy of the first Donald Duck book.