The Adventures of Herr Baby de Molesworth, Mrs. [Mary Louisa Molesworth] - 1881

London: Macmillan and Co, 1881. First Edition, First Printing. A Near Fine Hardcover. Near Fine; No Dust Jacket Issued. Illustrations by Walter Crane.

Finely bound in full tan levant morocco, with the original pictorial cloth cover with gilt designed by Walter Crane attached to a blank leaf in rear of volume; gilt rules and corner designs, spine decorated in gilt with dark morocco labels; the top edge-stained tan. First Edition, First Printing.

Illustrated with 12 wood-engraved plates on tinted backgrounds by Walter Crane, one of his earliest efforts.

8vo; 23.8 by 18 cm (9.25 by 7 in). Faint rubbing to bottom corners of boards; occasional foxing throughout otherwise text is clean; Near fine.. Mrs Molesworth is best known as a writer of books for the young, known as "the Jane Austen of the nursery." She typified late Victorian writing for girls.

Aimed at girls too old for fairies and princesses but too young for Austen and the Bronts, books by Molesworth had their share of amusement, but they also had a good deal of moral instruction.

The girls reading Molesworth would grow up to be mothers; thus, the books emphasized Victorian notions of duty and self-sacrifice. Typical of the time, her young child characters often use a lisping style, and words may be misspelt to represent children's speech: "jography" for geography, for instance.

Ref: fadedpage; goodread