Hardcover

1st

Fiction

First printing of the pacifist children’s classic, soon to be banned in Franco’s Spain at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. The first collaboration of Lawson and Leaf, FERDINAND was a hit with children but caused controversy among adults: the story of the bull who would rather smell the flowers than fight with the other bulls was read politically in the context of the Spanish Civil War. Although he hadn’t meant for the book to carry an ideological message, Leaf received angry letters claiming he was ”deliberately corrupting children of an impressionable age” (quoted in Davis). A wonderful work, in which the beauty of nonconformity still reads as subversive. A nice copy in jacket, and scarce as such. 8.25’’ x 7.25’’. Original quarter tan cloth, red pictorial boards. Original unclipped ($1.00) red pictorial dust jacket. Yellow pictorial endpapers. Illustrated throughout with black-and-white line drawings by Lawson. [72] pages. Jacket spine sunned, chipping to spine ends and corners.

Viking

9780670674244

1964-07-01

feelings

1

1

2023-12-14 10:58:25