Beatrix Potter | The Tailor of Gloucester, 1901, first privately printed edition, inscribed

Beatrix Potter

The Tailor of Gloucester. [Privately Printed for the Author], December 1902

FIRST PRIVATELY PRINTED EDITION [LIMITED TO 500 COPIES], PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR ("For Lady Warren | with kind regards from | "Beatrix Potter" | Christmas 1919") on front free endpaper, 16mo, coloured frontispiece and 15 illustrations by Beatrix Potter, original pictorial pink boards, collector’s chemise and slipcase, some loose plates, some browning and spotting, binding worn with some minor loss

[with, loosely inserted:] Autograph letter signed (“Beatrix Heelis”), to Lady Warren, sending her this copy of The Tailor of Gloucester, discussing its origins in a story told to her by cousins (“…they told me the story of the tailor; and I added the mice & the old fashioned coats…”), offering another copy to Lady Warren’s friend the poet John Masefield, who has praised the book, and admitting that she “would like to do two or three more stories like that, before my eyes give out completely”, 3 pages, 8vo, embossed stationery of Sawrey, Ambleside, 23 December 1919, some spotting and nicks at folds;

[also with:] Frances M. Martin, letter to Lady Warren, 4 pages, December 1919 

"...The Tailor never caught on like the others, but he is far the best…"

AN INSCRIBED COPY OF THE VOLUME ACCOMPANIED BY A LETTER IN WHICH BEATRIX POTTER GIVES HER OPINION OF THE BOOK. The recipient of this copy was Mary Isabel Warren, a daughter of Sir Benjamin Brodie, Bt, who married Herbert Warren (KCVO, 1914) in 1886.

PROVENANCE:

Judy Taylor, MBE (1932–2025, publisher and authority on Beatrix Potter); sale in these rooms, 9 July 2019, lot 211