4to. Numerous illustrations throughout. Original color-printed pictorial boards; dust jacket (cockling to rear affecting some parts of spine, minor rubbing). Provenance: "Torina" (contemporary gift inscription).

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE with 250/250 price on front flap of dust jacket, fourteen titles listed on rear flap, and advertisement for The Cat in the Hat on rear panel. The Grinch character made his first appearance in a 1955 illustrated poem entitled "The Hoobub and the Grinch," published in the May issue of Redbook. He began work on a book with The Grinch as the central character in late 1956 after a particularly difficult holiday season in which his wife's health problems, combined with his distaste for the over-commercialization of Christmas, left him feeling "very Grinchish." It was completed within weeks and published just in time for the 1957 holiday season, and became an instant holiday classic, leading to an animated adaptation narrated by Boris Karloff in 1966 and a live-action film starring Jim Carrey in 2000.