“THE CRAYON IS AS MUCH A CHARACTER AS HAROLD”: SCARCE FIRST EDITION OF CROCKETT JOHNSON’S SECOND HAROLD BOOK

JOHNSON, Crockett. Harold's Fairy Tale. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956. 12mo, original half black cloth, pictorial paper boards, original dust jacket. $1200.

First edition of the second book in Johnson’s popular Harold series.

In his second outing, Harold uses his trusty purple crayon to draw a castle, a king, a witch, a flying carpet and a good fairy. “From page to page, the thick, firm, purple mark delineates Harold’s actions against the stark white background so effectively and ingeniously that the crayon is as much a character as Harold… Few picture-book author-illustrators have captured [the world of very young children] as superbly as Johnson” (Silvey, 355). Ink price stamp to price-clipped dust jacket, suggesting that this particular copy failed to sell and was re-priced to the early edition price of $1.75.

Book near-fine, with quite clean interior, light edge-wear to boards. Scarce original, price-clipped dust jacket very good with two small chips, one just touching author's name on spine, short closed tear to fold of front flap, light soiling, repair to verso. An extremely good copy of a scarce title.