POTTER (BEATRIX)


WEATHERLEY (FREDERIC E.) Our Dear Relations. Illustrated by H.B.P and A.L. West, FIRST AND ONLY EDITION, 6 chromolithographed full-page illustrations on card (4 by Beatrix Potter signed "H.B.P.", and 2 by West), chromolithographed stiff pictorial wrappers, g.e., stitch bound with silk cord and blue tassels, slightly soiled, small losses to spine, and small piece at left hand edge of upper cover, stitch holes slightly enlarged [not in Quinby, Linder, nor V & A], oblong 12mo, Hildesheimer & Faulkner, [c.1893]
|VERY RARE, only three copies traced at auction in the past thirty years, and considerably scarcer than Potter's first publication A Happy Pair.Following a suggestion from her brother, Potter had "sent some of her rabbit drawings to Hildesheimer & Faulkner, a greetings-card publisher, who to her amazement and delight sent her a cheque for £6 by return, with a request for more. The company then made cards from some of her drawings, and others they used as illustrations to a set of verses by Frederic E. Weatherly in a booklet called A Happy Pair. At 24 Beatrix had begun her professional career" (Judy Taylor, The Artist and Her World, p.17). Our Dear Relation was issued a couple of years later, with Potter contributing four of the illustrations, two of guinea pigs, two of mice.Provenance: M.H. Rackstraw, Upper St., Islington, old bookseller's label on front paste-down; private UK collection.