Make Way For Ducklings.

MCCLOSKEY, Robert.

Item Number: 129582

New York: The Viking Press, 1941.

First edition of McCloskey’s Caldecott-winning book, beautifully written and illustrated with sepia drawings by him. Slim folio, original cloth, pictorial endpapers. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page, “For Jackie Robert McCloskey.” First editions are rare, especially so signed and inscribed.

“McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings gives an engaging picture of Boston and tells a story of universal delight for children everywhere” (Meigs, 586). “While he was working on the illustrations… McCloskey realized he needed live models. He bought four mallard chicks at a market and brought them home to his New York City apartment. When he went to Boston to sketch backgrounds, he brought back six more ducks. ‘All this sounds like a three-ring circus,’ he says, ‘but it shows that no effort is too great to find out as much as possible about the things you are drawing, It’s a good feeling to be able to put down a line and know that it is right” (Silvey, 443). Very good in a very good second issue dust jacket.