Nicholson, William and Arthur Waugh

square 4to (279 x 275mm.), 12 colour plates by Nicholson, original cloth-backed pictorial boards, head and foot of spine bumped, lower cover slightly bowed and corners of boards slightly worn, book plate and ownership inscription in upper left corner of front paste down endpaper, some light offsetting

Nicholson, Andrew. William Nicholson. Painter. London: Giles de la Mare, 1996, p.73

FIRST EDITION OF THIS CHILDREN'S TITLE, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS LITHOGRAPHED FROM ORIGINAL WOODCUTS BY NICHOLSON. Nicholson had been working with Heinemann since the mid-1890s. As well as from designing the publisher's windmill colophon, Nicholson created a number of books for Heinemann including The Square Book of Animals, which was published in October 1899.

Rudyard Kipling, who had written the words which accompanied Nicholson's designs for An Almanac of Twelve Sports (Heinemann, 1898), was approached to provide the text for the new title, but as he explained in a letter to the publisher, he faced difficulties: "All Nicholson's animals are practically extinct in Great Britain, their places being supplied by New Zealand Lamb; Argentine Beef... The only way I tried it, my verses became so deeply political (not to say protectionist) that I stopped."

Despite this, Nicholson's collaboration with Arthur Waugh was received with delight, the Pall Mall Gazette advising parents to cut up their copies and frame the illustrations: "If a few thousand parents would nerve themselves up to this undertaking, a future generation of Englishmen might know something about decorative art."