The "Little Folks" Plays Containing Cinderella, Rumplestiltzkin and Dummling by RACKHAM, Arthur, illustrator; BROWNE, Maggie; HILL, Miranda

London, Paris New York & Melbourne: Cassell and Company, 1906. "Little Folks" [RACKHAM, Arthur, illustrator]. BROWNE, Maggie. HILL, Miranda. The "Little Folks" Plays Containing Cinderella, Rumplestiltskin and Dummling. How to get up a Children's Play. By Miranda Hill and Maggie Browne. Illustrated. London, Paris New York & Melbourne: Cassell and Company, Limited, 1906. First edition in book form (first published as a single play "Cinderella" in 1903). Small octavo (7 1/4 x 4 3/4 inches; 185 x 121 mm.). [1-3], 4-48, [1], 4-30, [33], 34-48, [5-9], 10-48 pp. Two full-page color plates and two full-page black and white drawings by Arthur Rackham. Four other full-page color plates and several black and white drawings by H.R. Millar and others. Publisher's blue cloth, front cover pictorially stamped in dark brown and lettered in dark brown and gilt. Spine lettered in dark brown, plain end-papers. Expertly rebacked with the original cloth spine laid-down. An excellent copy. The strange pagination does not account for the apparently intentional stubs left by the publisher, which, when counted, gives continuous numbers. The book, though, is complete in spite of the quirky pagination; it has been compared with the few other known copies as a check for completeness. The publication date has been taken from Riall, as well as the copy in the University of Texas Libraries, which has a 1906 inscription as well as bound in publisher's advertisements dated August, 1906 (though this is in a variant tan binding). 'Cinderella" is a very early illustrated work by Arthur Rackham, first appearing in the Little Folks monthly in November and December of 1897. This is its first appearance in book form. Counting the frontispiece, there are two full color full page plates, and two full page black and white plates. "Rumpelstiltzkin and Dimmling" is illustrated with 2 color plates and 3 black and white plates. "Rumpelstiltzkin" is illustrated by H. R. Millar; it apparently appeared in book form in 1903, but one of the plates is dated '94. The final work, "How to Get Up a Children's Play" is illustrated with line drawings and two unsigned full color plates. A very early and really scarce Rackham, whose career is usually dated from 1894. His Cinderella is significantly different form the illustrations in his later work. In over fifty years of specializing in the work of Arthur Rackham I have never seen this title before (DJB). According to OCLC there is one copy of the single play Cinderella (1903) at Cambridge University (GB) and just six copies of the 1906 edition (University of Southern California; Yale University Library; University of Michigan Library; University of Minnesota; Free Library of Philadelphia, and University of Texas, Austin. Gettings, p. 175 (1903 Cinderella); Hamilton, p. 188 (1903 edition); Hudson, p. 175 (1906 edition); Riall, p. 55; Not in Latimore and Haskell.