HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON

[New York]: Harper & Brothers, 1955. First printing. Very good plus in very good jacket.. First edition of the beautiful meta-picture book on the power of the creative imagination, rarely seen with the original dust jacket so intact. Legendary children's book editor Ursula Nordstrom nearly turned down this book, which she later viewed as an instructive error in judgment. Besides becoming immediate bestsellers, the minimalist Harold books - simultaneously simple and profound - have become an influential favorite of many other artists and authors: in his 1982 acceptance speech for the Caldecott Award for JUMANJI, Chris Van Allsburg explicitly thanks "Harold, for his purple crayon"; Maurice Sendak praised the "supreme inventiveness" of Harold; Rita Dove recalled the book as her earliest favorite, and names Harold in her poem "Maple Valley Branch Library, 1967." A terrific copy of perhaps the perfect children's book. 5.75'' x 4.5''. Original quarter black cloth, color pictorial boards. In original unclipped ($1.50, lower corner) brown and purple pictorial dust jacket. Illustrated by Johnson in black and purple on every page. [64] pages. Early ink ownership inscription on front fly leaf. Book with bumping to corners, otherwise quite fresh; jacket with some shallow edgewear, most notably at spine ends and corners, with a small chip on rear bottom corner: spine unfaded.