Madeline.

BEMELMANS, Ludwig.

Item Number: 82390

New York: Simon and Schuster, 1939.

First edition with the 1939 date on the title page and with 12 girls instead of 11 in the “They went home and broke their bread” illustration. Thin folio, original illustrated boards, color illustrations throughout, illustrated endpapers. Boldly signed by Ludwig Bemelmans on the front free endpaper. An excellent example in a very good dust jacket. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. Rare and desirable signed.

First published in 1939, each Madeline story begins: "In an old house in Paris, that was covered with vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines... the smallest one was Madeline." “The original inspiration for Madeline was the convent where Bemelmans’ mother was educated as a child, along with the author’s own experience in boarding school, where he walked with his classmates in two straight lines” (Silvey, 55).