PEACOCK PIE. A Book of Rhymes

New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1936. The first edition to feature the illustrations by Jocelyn Crowe. With "eighty-one little pictures in colour by Jocelyn Crowe." They are distributed throughout typically one per page. Tall 8vo, original sea-blue cloth with gilt peacock device on the upper cover, spine lettered in gilt and with gilt peacock feather, top edge dyed blue. vii, 112pp. A very nice copy of the seldom seen book. The cloth in excellent shape, fine and free of both wear and fading, the gilt on the spine very mildly mellowed, the paper fresh and clean with virtually no evidence of age. FIRST EDITION THUS. A LOVELY BOOK FOR CHILDREN, PRINTED AT THE CHISWICK PRESS IN ENGLAND. PEACOCK PIE features over 90 poems for children by popular poet Walter De La Mare. La Mare's collection of poems, "stands alongside Songs of Innocence and Sing-Song and A Child’s Garden as a work which deserves to be lived with whole and which – whole – has its own peculiar plangency... Many rhymes owed much in structure to nursery rhymes – which de la Mare loved; many belonged to a tradition of Victorian pastorale; and between these were quirky essays in reflective mystery which were pure de la Mare.
Jocelyn Crowe was the third artist to have drawing gracing the pages of La Mare's poems. The first was none other than W. Heath Robinson, whose frontispiece and line-drawings graced the 80 poems originally published. Following this was a posh edition with artwork by Lovat Fraser, to which ten more poems were added to the canon. Ms. Crowe's edition followed, putting her among a very fine company of artists.