c1910 Happy Schooldays

Description

Colour Plates, First Edition, Illustrated, Publishers' Original Binding, Very Scarce

A vanishingly scarce first edition.

With numerous vignette illustrations of Louis Wain's iconic anthropomorphic cats and kittens throughout, alongside six colour plates. Collated, complete.

The narrative of this work is supplied by 'Freckles', who details a young kitten named Paddy's reluctance to go to school.

Undated; published circa 1910, following the purchase of publisher Gale & Polden's Aldershot premises in 1893, but prior to them being granted the Royal Warrant in 1916.

Despite his life ending in tragic circumstances, Wain's work was enormously popular in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Following the decline of his wealth and mental state, prime minister Ramsay MacDonald set up a fund for Wain's sisters and also arranged civil list pensions for them 'in recognition of their brother's services to popular art'. He said that 'probably no artist has given a greater number of young people pleasure than he has'.

In 1925, H. G. Wells said of Wain, 'he invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. English cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves'.