An Original Manuscript for an Unpublished Children's Book, Made by the Author for his Five-Year-Old Son

No place, August 3, 1881. Original illustrated manuscript, comprising 60 leaves, each with a full-page graphite and watercolor drawing, and with manuscript caption below each image; on rectos only; first page titled "L.F.C." in colored block letters (Lionel Francis Crane, the author's son). 8vo (7 3/4 x 6 1/4 in.; 197 x 159 mm). Full navy blue morocco, stamped in gilt, with gilt nautical ornaments in each corner of front and rear boards; marbled endpapers; by Bennett, New York; one sheet loose; scattered spotting.

A fine and very charming original manuscript for an unpublished children's book by English illustrator Walter Crane, made for his five-year-old son Lionel Crane's (1876-1943) personal enjoyment. The story features 60 full-page illustrations and follows a young boy (also named Lionel) on his many seafaring adventures. First, Lionel travels to the Straits of Knowledge, where he battles against the Kings of Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, and is saved by the H.M.S. Perseverance. After a short stop to the large city of Knowledge, where Lionel is welcomed with fireworks and celebrations, he takes back to the sea where he encounters islands made of stewed pears and of jelly, all the while meeting various peoples and creatures, including a large menacing whale, and the King of Jelly Fishes. At the end, Lionel's boat is sunk by King Storm and his horde of Storm Trumpeters, but is saved by a ship and returned to port, where he will no doubt shortly take to the sea once again.

Although this manuscript was never published, it serves as a thematic and stylistic precursor to Crane's series of picture books published in the mid to late 1880s, such as Slateandpencilvania (1885)--featuring similar characters as this work--Pothooks & Perseverance, or, the A.B.C. Serpent (1886), and Legends for Lionel (1887), among others. In the preface for the latter work, Crane explains that book's genesis, and offers an explanation to the origin of the above manuscript: "All Lions have tails: some--like the one here--remarkably long ones. Some Lionels I know have 'Legends' instead. The Lionel for which these were made is a great devourer of them, and he also has an appetite for pictures to paint. This book of sketches, the offspring of the odd half hours of winter evenings, was originally intended strictly for home consumption."

From the late 1870s through the 1880s, Crane made several similar picture books for his children, Lionel and Beatrice, the large majority of which are now at Harvard and Yale Universities, but also in the New York Public Library and UCLA. See Spencer, pp. 202-203; Tancini, The Caroline Miller Parker Collection of the Work of Walter Crane, pp. 108-118.

This is among the lengthiest of manuscripts to come to auction in decades, and almost certainly one of the only few remaining unpublished manuscripts in private hands.