Tinker, Tailor by Louis Wain first edition 1914

WAIN, Louis. Tinker, Tailor. London: Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd., [1914].
 
190 x 250 mm. 136 pp., with 8 pp. of publisher's advertisements at rear. Original brown pictorial boards with cloth spine and mounted colour illustration to the upper board. Illustrated throughout by Louis Wain, with all 12 colour plates present together with numerous black-and-white illustrations.
 
About Very Good. The boards are bright and attractive with only slight wear to the edges and corner tips, and the binding remains sound. A few scattered foxing marks internally. Contemporary presentation inscription to the front free endpaper dated Christmas 1922, with a later child's pencil inscription beneath subsequently erased, leaving an area of abrasion and thinning to the paper, visible from both sides. Apart from this localised fault, a very good and complete copy.
 
A rare and desirable Louis Wain title, built around the familiar counting rhyme "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Gentleman, Apothecary, Ploughboy, Thief". Wain turns each occupation into one of his characteristic anthropomorphic feline worlds, the cats appearing as tradesmen, travellers and members of Edwardian society throughout the stories and illustrations.