The Secret Garden by Burnett, Frances Hodgson - 1911

London: William Heinemann, 1911. 1st Edition 1st Printing. Hardcover. Fair. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. Robinson, Charles. 306 pages, plus six pages of Heinemann ads. All 8 plates by Charles Robinson, all with their tissue guards, all clear and sharp. Green cloth with gilt lettering and decoration on front board and spine strip. This is the good news. Now for the faults: he boards are rubbed, and chipped and fraying at the edges; the spine strip is damages head and tail with splits on either side. There are two ownership signatures on the front end paper, which, together with the half title page and frontispiece is mostly detached, apart from a section towards the tail. The front hinge is cracked as is the back one. As the green cloth is well worn along the spine strip, the back board is shaky, though it is unlikely to become detached, as the cotton ties are still strong. There is intermittent light foxing throughout; pp 115/116 have a short tear at the tail's outer edge and page 243 suffers from loss, also at the tail's outer edge. Neither affects the print. A book that has been loved and read, it's no beauty queen and it does suffer from arthritic joints. In its favour, the binding is very good, and for all its faults it should easily last another 100+ years if treated with respect.