Child's Garden of Verses

Avenel, New Jersey, U.S.A.: Children's Classics, 1985 1985 Edition, Later Printing, 119 Pages, Illustrated By Jessie Wilcox Smith In Colour And Black And White.Vg+ In Like Jacket. There Is A Line Of Ink About Three Inches Long Down The Hinge On Ffep, Otherwise No Writing Or Marks And Appears Unread. One Of The Colour Plates Is 'The Land Of Counterpane.' I Had As A Child A Much Less Luxurious Edition, But With A Similar Picture, And I Was Told That Robert Louis Stevenson Had Been Ill A Great Deal As A Child (Of Tuberculosis?) And That When He Grew Up He Wrote This Book For Other Little Children Who Had To Spend A Lot Of Time In Bed. I Always Believed That The Little Boy In Bed In The Picture Was Rls, And I Think I Knew That He Didn't Live Very Long (Our Family Was Much Enamoured Of Melodrama!). Checking It Out On Wikipedia, I See That All Of This Was More Or Less Correct, Although It Is Now Believed That He Suffered From Something Other Than Tuberculosis. In 1894, The Year Of His Death, He Apparently Said, In Expressing His Desire To Be Active And To Die Suddenly, Rather Than To Waste Away,"No More Land Of Counterpane For Me!" I Was Pleased To Read That He Is Currently Very Much Appreciated, Which He Was Not In The 1960'S And 1970'S, When He Was Viewed As A Children's Writer Only. He Is Now Viewed, With H. Rider Haggard, As A Talented And Influential Storyteller, And In Samoa, Where He Spent His Last Days (In His 40'S) He Was Called Tusitala, Samoan For "Storywriter."