De Brunhoff, Jean

i) Histoire de Babar le petit éléphant. Jardin des Modes, 1931, first edition, first state (without elephant logo on the copyright page), blue cloth backed pictorial boards, pictorial endpapers; ii) Le Voyage de Babar. Jardin des Modes, 1932, first edition, early issue (listing three titles on the copyright page), red cloth backed pictorial boards, pictorial endpapers; iii) Le Roi Babar. Jardin des Modes, 1933, first edition, black cloth backed pictorial boards, pictorial endpapers; iv) Les Vacances de Zéphir. Hachette, 1936, first edition, cream cloth backed pictorial boards, pictorial endpapers; v) Babar en Famille. Hachette, 1938, first edition, grey cloth backed pictorial boards, pictorial endpapers; all folio (364 x 264mm.), illustrations throughout by the author, extremities of all volumes very lightly worn, some light soiling, small discrete stamp to the corner of the rear paste down endpaper of vol. 2 (5)

THE FIRST FIVE TITLES IN BRUNHOFF'S SERIES. The first Babar story was invented by Brunhoff's wife, Cecile, to amuse their two sons, Laurent and Mathieu. Jean de Brunhoff came from a family of artists, his father having worked with the Impressionist painter James Tissot and his brother being the editor of French Vogue, and at the request of his sons created the vibrant illustrations of the now iconic 'le petit éléphant'.

After his father's death from tuberculosis aged just 37, Laurent began to write and illustrate new Babar titles, the most recent of which - Babar: L'île du paradis - was published in 2014.