The Campfire Girls' Larks and Pranks or the House of the Open Door

New York, New York, U.S.A.: A. L. Burt Company, 1917. First Edition Later Printing . Hardcover. Very Good+/Very Good+. Davis, J. Watson; Gooch, Thelma. One of the very first series books created for young girls at the turn of the 20th century, drawing on the popularity of the very first social organization for females, the Camp Fire Girls, which had been modeled on the Boy Scouts. The girls in the books, all from Cleveland, Ohio, engaged in wholesome activities while camping, exploring, adventuring, or doing service work. This is book #5 in a series of only 10 penned by Hildegard G. Frey, the only ones officially endorsed by the Camp Fire Girls Organization. Other writers had written previous stories, & would continue to after these. From one young girl's collection, this 1917 book is in its FIRST EDITION, First State binding, but with a Second State DJ: drawn by renowned children's book illustrator Thelma Gooch, these were more colorful & showed the girls in different clothes engaged in different activities from the book. Hardcover 8vo 12mo (5.25" x 7.5") has blue cloth-covered boards decorated on front & spine with images of Camp Fire girls engaged in various activities, lettered in black & red to front & spine. In 256 pages, with a glossy frontispiece by J. Watson Davis (better known for illustrating the Horatio Alger series). Condition is VG+: very clean, binding strong & square, hinges secure, pages creamy white with age-appropriate tanning, heavier around edges; unmarked save for former owner's name & address in pencil to ffep (we never erase these to honor those girls from long ago). Modest rubbing to extremities, heavier to both ends of spine & all corners. Mild fading to top 1" all around . The unclipped DJ is also VG+: colorful & bright, but missing a small section to top of spine, lesser chipping to other extremities; nicely protected in new clear mylar cover free! Our photos show the exact book you will receive, never "stock" images of books we don't actually have! Same day shipping on all orders received by 2 pm weekdays (Pacific time); later orders, weekends & holidays ship very next business day.