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A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys
by Hawthorne, Nathaniel
- Used
- very good
- Hardcover
- Condition
- Very Good /No Jacket
- Seller
-
HINDHEAD, Surrey, United Kingdom
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
London: Walter Scott. Octavo, printer's signatures each eight leaves. Green, cloth-covered boards with red and silver decoration, silver lettering. Frontispiece illustration by the Swan Electric Engraving Company. Undated; dated to 1894 from the advertisements at the back of the book. The "important new novel", Ester Walters by George Moore was first published in that year. Gift inscription in best handwriting dated 1901 on the front free endpaper. Minor wear only and in genuinely very good condition given the age of the book. . Very Good. Hardcover. 1894.
Synopsis
Hawthorne made it his ambition to be a writer as a teenager, he graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine, where poet Longfellow was also a student, and spent several years traveling New England writing short stories before creating The Scarlet Letter. He wrote A Wonder-Book between April and July 1851, freely adapting six legends from Charles Anton's A Classical Dictionary . He set out deliberately to 'modernize' the stories, freeing them from 'cold moonshine' and using a romantic, readable style. This was criticized by adults but proved universally popular with children. The stories in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys are all stories within a story. The frame being that a Williams College student, Eustace Bright, is telling these tales to a group of children at Tanglewood, an area in Lenox, Massachusetts, where Hawthorne lived for a time. A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys covers the myths of: The Gorgon's Head - the story of Perseus killing Medusa at the request of the king of the island, Polydectes. The Golden Touch - the story of King Midas and his "Golden Touch". The Paradise of Children - the story of Pandora opening the box filled with all of mankind's Troubles. The Three Golden Apples - the story of Heracles procuring the Three Golden Apples from the Hesperides' orchard, with the help of Atlas. The Miraculous Pitcher - the story of Baucis and Philemon providing food and shelter to two strangers who were Zeus and "Quicksilver" (Hermes) in disguise. Baucis and Philemon were rewarded by the gods for their kindness; they were promised never to live apart from one another. The Chimæra - the story of Bellerophon taming Pegasus and killing the Chimæra.
Read More: Identifying first editions of A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys
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Details
- Bookseller
- Weysprings Books, IOBA, PBFA
(GB)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 005548
- Title
- A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys
- Author
- Hawthorne, Nathaniel
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Jacket Condition
- No Jacket
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Publisher
- Walter Scott
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- 1894
- Size
- 7.25" X 4.5".
- Keywords
- CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
- Bookseller catalogs
- Children's Literature;
Terms of Sale
Weysprings Books, IOBA, PBFA
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Weysprings Books, IOBA, PBFA
Biblio member since 2010
HINDHEAD, Surrey
About Weysprings Books, IOBA, PBFA
Weysprings Books is an independent bookseller based in Surrey, UK, exclusively selling on the internet. We specialise in modern first editions. We use internationally accepted terms to describe our books and endeavour to reflect their true condition in our descriptions. We regret that, due to compliance regulations, we are unable to fulfil orders to Germany and France.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Leaves
- Very generally, "leaves" refers to the pages of a book, as in the common phrase, "loose-leaf pages." A leaf is a single sheet...
- Octavo
- Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
- New
- A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...
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