THE STORY OF LITTLE BLACK SAMBO
$4,950 · Offered by Biblio
First edition
1899. Bannerman, Helen. London: Grant Richards, 1899. Original light green cloth decorated in dark green. First Edition, issued as the fourth volume in Grant Richards's diminutive series "The Dumpy Books for Children" -- of which the first three are long-forgotten. The Preface briefly describes how the Scotswoman Helen Bannerman (1863-1946), who married an army doctor and spent much of her life in southern India, came to write and illustrate this book: Once upon a time there was an English lady in India, where black children abound and tigers are everyday affairs, who had two little girls. To amuse these little girls she used now and then to invent stories, for which, being extremely talented, she also drew and coloured the pictures. Among these stories Little Black Sambo, which was made up on a long railway journey, was the favourite; and it has been put into a Dumpy Book, and the pictures copied as exactly as possible, in the hope that you will like it as much as the two little girls did. LITTLE BLACK SAMBO passed through five editions in its first year, and was quickly a household fixture in both the U.K. and the U.S.; its author tried to follow up on its popularity with several other similar books (for example LITTLE BLACK MINGO in 1901, LITTLE BLACK QUIBBA in 1902, LITTLE BLACK QUASHA in 1908 and LITTLE BLACK BOBTAIL in 1909) -- but only SAMBO was a big hit. (Incidentally some, like Schiller, have suggested that the success of this book prompted another series of books f
- Year: 1899
- Edition: First Edition
- Binding: unknown
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