1911 Little Boy Blue Childs Book Signed by Author John Martin

Books : Children

 

This is a great little book from The Read Out Loud Books series it is published by Dodd, Mead and company copyright 1911. The title page is glued down on the top half of the page. You can read everything there but for some reason part of the page is glued down. There are other publishers of this book but Dodd, Mead and Company are the first and original publishers of this book. It is titled "Tell me a story about" Little Boy Blue, There was a Man in our Town, Ride a Cock Horse, To Bed To Bed, Ding Dong Bell. The index page has each story listed and time indicator for how long the story should take to read. This is such a cool little book. It is signed by the author John Martin. The child added pencil writing to it and put from and to M. Darcy, Kellogg. The illustrations are by Stacy H. Wood. The book is 178 pages long. It is a checkered cloth hard cover book. The cloth on the covers is soiled. There is some paper loss to the paste down title on the cover. The book has 12 pages loose from the book but are all there and those pages are still attached together. It has just come loose front the binding. There is tears on some of the pages and there is light tanning. Darling illus throughout the entire book, there is a full illustrated page on every other page. Most are done just in orange color but there are 15 pages that have more color than just orange. You will see some examples below. The book measures 5 x 4 inches. The spine has some dents in it also and the paper label on it is gone. Still a great read and autographed by the author John Martin. Just a tid bit of information John Martin also goes by Morgan Shepard. Here is some information on him Morgan Shepard. It took Morgan Shepard 45 years to find his calling as an author and advocate for children. Along the way he had a fruitful parnership with Paul Elder from 1898 to 1903. Morgan van Roorbach Shepard was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1865 and raised in Maryland. He had a turbulent youth: orphaned at nine, he attended several boarding schools until age sixteen. He then set off for adventure in South America, fell in love en route, disembarked in Panama only to get mixed up in a Central American revolution. Arriving in California, he worked as a miner, shepherd, grape picker, streetcar conductor (he was fired for giving free rides to children), reporter and finally, "thirteen interminable years" as a bank clerk in San Francisco.

In the mid-1890s Shepard fell in with the local bohemian set--no doubt influenced by his neighbor Gelett Burgess--and he became a minor member of les jeunes. About this same time he was introduced to Paul Elder, and the two made plans to go into business together. Despite their differences -- Shepard was artistic, friendly and outgoing; Elder was quiet and reserved with a head for business -- their skills nicely complemented each other.

The firm of Elder & Shepard published about 40 books from 1898-1903. Several of them were children's books written and illustrated by Shepard, his first forays into the genre that would be the focus of his later life.

Shepard left the partnership in 1903. He travelled to Europe to study design, returning to San Francisco in 1906 to start a design firm, only to get burned out in the earthquake and fire. To make matters worse, he suffered a severe foot injury trying to retrieve valuables from his office safe.

Shepard moved to New York and published a few books under his own name. While recovering from an operation to save his injured leg, he sold poems and stories to children's magazines under the name "John Martin". In 1913 he started the children's magazine John Martin's Book, which by 1925 had almost 40,000 subscribers. Along with Morgan's own stories, John Martin's Book included contributions from the leading children's writers and artists of the day.

Morgan Shepard had finally found the job he had been looking for. He never had much money, partly because he refused to commercialize John Martin's Book, but he claimed to be the richest and happiest man on earth.

John Martin's Book's successful run ended in 1933. Shepard died in New York City on 17 May 1947, aged 82.

Item ID: 156