1920s Where the Rainbow Ends by Clifford Mills / Incredibly Scarce Esp. in Dust Wrapper / Hodder & Stoughton, London / Richly Illustrated

Incredibly scarce and collectable children's fantasy classic. Particularly so in the dust wrapper, here is an early copy of Where the Rainbow Ends by Clifford Mills the pseudonym of Emilie Clifford, a playwright. This charming fantasy work follows four children, accompanied by a pet lion cub, as they search for their parents. It features Saint George, magic carpets, mythical creatures and a white witch. Here is a beautiful, large format copy with tipped-in colour illustrations by Leo Bates plus many more line drawings. Undated but I'm assuming 1910s-1920s by Hodder & Stoughton, London. The book is in good condition, with just a couple of condition points to note. The dust wrapper is the only one I can find for this copy anywhere for sale at time of listing. As can be seen from the photos it has a good deal of wear and loss but the front has remained relatively unscathed and is incredibly striking.

First published as a book in 1912, this was based on Mills' play of the same name, written for performance at Christmas for children by Mills and John Ramsey, with music composed by Roger Quilter. The book went on to be reprinted many times, whilst the play was performed professionally almost every year for the next fifty. It was performed for Queen Elizabeth II when she was eleven years old, and adapted into a film. Noel Coward was twelve years old when he starred as one of the children in the opening run.

Inside the pages are clean and tightly bound. All the colour plates are present as called for, and all in good condition. Opens onto illustrated endpapers, there is a tanned/spotted square area to the front endpapers where possibly a piece of paper has been left in the book for a number of years. With spotting also to the next half-title page where there is also a gift bookplate. Has some light tanning and spotting to the closed outside edges.

Red cloth covered boards have wonderful gilt decoration to the front and spine (see photos). In very good order. The only condition points to note here are some light fading of the red along the top edge and also a split to the cloth at the head of the spine (shown in final close-up photo).

The dust wrapper has nicks and tears along the edges and some larger areas of loss. These have been stabilised on the reverse side with tape at some point. The jacket has now been protected for the future by the addition of a removable plastic sleeve.

Your antique copy of Where the Rainbow Ends will be wrapped with care in tissue and ribbon* and sent well packaged. I am always happy to add a gift card with a message to the parcel.

H 29 cm x W 24 cm, 126 pages, 1.2 kg. I dispatch worldwide daily from the UK. (There are just a very few countries which I am unable to ship to).

* If you would prefer for your book not to be decoratively wrapped but sent simply in the full protective packaging please add a note to the order.

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