FIRST EDITION OF YERTLE THE TURTLE AND OTHER STORIES, INSCRIBED BY DR. SEUSS
SEUSS, Dr. Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories. New York: Random House, (1958). Slim quarto, original pictorial green paper boards, pictorial endpapers, original dust jacket.
First collected edition of three of Seuss’ most memorable stories, inscribed : “for Peter Joseph with Best Wishes— Dr. Seuss.”
“It is interesting to watch the progression of stacking turtles in [Seuss’] work over a nearly 25-year period… He began stacking them in May 1928 and repeated that image through the next two decades” (Cohen, 307), culminating in this volume’s title story, a gentle but pointed parable about justice and social equality. The book also collects “Gertrude McFuzz” and “The Big Brag”; as the dust jacket states, “Thousands of people who read these three great Dr. Seuss fables in Redbook Magazine have written and begged us to print them in book form. So here they are.” Younger & Hirsch 82.
Book fine, with only light rubbing to edges of boards. Dust jacket near-fine, with light wear to extremities and a half-inch closed tear to spine foot. A scarce and desirable inscribed copy.