The Purple Cow! by Gelett Burgess The Lark first edition 1895

BURGESS, Gelett. The Purple Cow.
 
San Francisco: William Doxey, 1895.
 
First separate edition. Original pictorial wrappers. 130 x 200 mm. 16 pages including wrappers. Numerous illustrations throughout by the author. Short closed tear to the fore-edge of the front wrapper, otherwise a particularly clean, well-preserved copy with only light handling wear. Very good.
 
The first separate appearance of Gelett Burgess's celebrated nonsense classic, published in the same year that the Purple Cow verse first appeared in Burgess's literary magazine The Lark. Dedicated to the Readers of The Lark and containing a series of poems, short prose pieces and surreal illustrations including "The Peculiar History of the Chewing-Gum Man", "The Invisible Bridge", and Burgess's Purple Cow.