Roly-Poly Pudding, The by POTTER, Beatrix

New York: Frederick Warne & Co., 1908. The Adventures of Mr. Samuel Whiskers POTTER, Beatrix. The Roly-Poly Pudding. London: Frederick Warne & Co., [n.d., after 1920]. First American edition, third printing. Small quarto (7 3/4 x 6 1/8 inches; 196 x 157 mm.). [vi], 69, [1] pp. Color frontispiece, pictorial title, and seventeen full-page color illustrations. Thirty-eight black and white vignettes in the text. Original red cloth over boards with front cover stamped in green and lettered in gilt and green and spine lettered in green. Color pictorial paper label on front cover within a rectangular blind panel outlined in blind with a green single rule border. Color pictorial endpapers (Quinby Plates V & VI). Occasional very minor foxing or soiling. Spine extremities and corners very slightly rubbed. An excellent copy. "In The Roly-Poly Pudding Beatrix Potter expresses her love of the quaint old farmhouse at Hill Top, Sawrey, which she has taken as the setting for the story. The plot is evidently inspired by the numerous rats which were over-running the house at that time, and although the book was not published until the autumn of 1908, the story was actually written in 1906...The story of the Roly-Poly Pudding tells of the adventures of Tom Kitten and of Mr. Samuel Whiskers and his wife Anna Maria...Although written about the rats at Hill Top, The Roly-Poly Pudding was dedicated to Beatrix Potter's tame white rat 'Sammy'...In 1926 to bring it into line with the other books in the series, it was printed in the ordinary small format, which pleased Beatrix Potter, and the title was changed to The Tale of Samuel Whiskers" (Linder, p. 191-194). Linder, p. 427. Quinby 15a.