“A PART OF THE WORLD AND A WORLD OF ITS OWN”: MARGARET WISE BROWN’S PSEUDONYMOUS THE LITTLE ISLAND, SIGNED BY ILLUSTRATOR LEONARD WEISGARD

[BROWN, Margaret Wise]. MACDONALD, Golden (pseudonym) and WEISGARD, Leonard. The Little Island. Garden City: Doubleday, 1946. Oblong octavo, original half blue cloth and pictorial boards, pictorial endpapers, original dust jacket. $1600.

First edition of this award-winning picture book, with text by Margaret Wise Brown and color pictorial boards and 21 full-page color illustrations, signed by the illustrator, Leonard Weisgard.

Kingfishers, butterflies and a little kitten explore the secrets of a beautiful island in this lushly illustrated children’s book. “Brown was a prolific writer and used several pseudonyms in addition to her own name, signing books as Golden MacDonald, Timothy Hay and Juniper Sage… The passionate energy with which she wrote and the casual way she selected and used pseudonyms reflect her personality as others knew it. The number of her books, as well as their appeal, contributed to her enormous sales; by the end of 1946 [the year in which this title was published]… some 835,000 copies of her books had been sold… Ironically, Brown’s productivity may have delayed formal recognition of her talent” (ANB). “Although Weisgard illustrated stories for numerous authors, he was known especially for his association with Margaret Wise Brown… Weisgard was a runner-up for the Caldecott Medal in 1946 for his illustrations to Little Lost Lamb and won the award in 1947 for The Little Island; Brown wrote both books under the pseudonym Golden MacDonald” (Britannica Online). Caldecott label affixed to front panel.

Book about-fine with slight edge-wear, dust jacket extremely good with light toning to spine, closed tear to front panel, minor abrasions to rear panel, one tape repair to verso. A lovely signed copy.