The jingle of a Jap. by [JAPANESE ICHIMATSU DOLLS]. THURSTON, Clara Bell - [1906].

Boston: H.M. Caldwell Co., [1906]. Tall 8vo. 7.2 x 9 in. [32 pp (unpaginated).], printed in full colour on double-fold leaves. Colour frontisp., colour plates, colour-illustrations & borders throughout. Colour-illustrated cretonne publisher’s cloth, printed paper label on front cover, Japanese bisque Ichimatsu doll attached to front cover as issued dressed in green and red-coloured kimono (very minor wear to the head), w/ original colour-illustrated publisher’s box, cover art repeats title page illustration, figures in traditional Japanese dress in the borders & sides, printed label at 1 end of box lid (minor edgewear, slight rubbing, very slight foxing), still a NF/NF copy, w/ ownership markings on ffep., and stamp on bottom of box for the Raphael Weill & Co. White House Department Store in San Francisco. First edition of this curious and scarce illustrated children’s book in verse describing the unrequited love of a Japanese Ichimatsu doll for a lovely Parisian wax doll with flowing golden curls, and subsequent rejection after he teaches himself English with an ABC primer. This book was published directly after the Japanese success in the Russo-Japanese War, and at the height of the popularity of the interracial romance novels from Winnifred Eaton (1875-1954) a popular Chinese-American writer writing as Onoto Watanna a Japanese-American novelist, including The Wooing of wisteria, Heart of Hyacinth, Love of Azalea, and the very popular A Japanese Blossom published in 1906. The Ichimatsu dolls vary from copy to copy, with each wearing different colour kimonos, and appears to have been intended as a gift edition with box seen on the Altemus Boys and Girls’ Classics Series. Thurston (fl. 1880-1941) illustrated a number of racially tinged works, including When Squash-Boo found the Coco-nuts, and for her well-known pirating of Helen Bannerman’s Little Black Sambo publishing a sequel in 1926 with her own illustrations. Copies complete with both original doll and gift box are quite rare. See: Catalogue of Copyright Entries, Part 1, New Series Vol. 1 (1906), p. 466; Browne, Pictures, Stories, and Verses for the Little Ones (1906), p. 404; Diana Birchall, Onoto Watanna: The Story of Winnifred Eaton.