Lot 1449
[Potter, Beatrix] Comical Customers. At the New Stores of Comical Rhymes and Stories, first edition, tipped-in chromo-lithographed frontispiece, numerous illustrations by Louis Wain and nine drawings by Beatrix Potter, signed H.B.P., original cloth-backed pictorial boards, extremities rubbed, lower board with slight damp damage, 4to, London: Ernest Nister, [c.1894]
THE AUTHOR'S FIRST PUBLISHED WORK. Beatrix Potter negotiated with publisher Ernest Lister for the first appearance of these drawings, which were used to illustrate a story titled 'A Frog he would a-fishing go'. Subsequent to the success of Peter Rabbit in 1902, she bought back the drawings and the copyright for the sum of £6. It later became the basis for The Tale of Mr Jeremy Fisher, published in 1906.
SEE ILLUSTRATION.
