The Artist’s Only SIGNED Limited Edition (27 Copies printed)
PARRISH (Maxfield):
Proofs of his Illustrations for Mother Goose in Prose by L Frank BAUM. 珍本
Chicago: Way & Williams, 1897.
Complete set with 14 original signed prints on Japanese Vellum paper, each print signed in pencil by the artist at lower right.   Small folio, the colophon numbered in pencil “Copy 23 of 27” sets, most of the prints also accompanied by a tissue cover guard; still with the publisher’s wood-laminated lettered portfolio and silk ties.
The signed prints comprise the following images: Half-title vignette, Title-page illustration, The Story of Little Boy Blue, The Black Sheep, Old King Cole, The Wondrous Wise Man, What Jack Horner Did, The Man in the Moon, Little Bo-Peep, The Story of Tommy Tucker, Tom the Piper’s Son, Three Wise Men of Gotham, The Little Man with his Little Gun, and Humpty Dumpty.
Aside from being Maxfield Parrish’s first series of book illustrations, this portfolio represents the only instance in the artist’s entire career of producing a signed limited edition. MOTHER GOOSE IN PROSE was also L Frank BAUM‘s first published children’s book, produced three years prior to his “Wonderful Wizard of Oz”.
Of the original 27 copies produced of this portfolio, less than a dozen are believed to still be complete. Accompanied with a very nice copy of the published first edition in original colored pictorial cloth, slip-cased.