The Giving Tree.

SILVERSTEIN, Shel.

Item Number: 96149

New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1964.

First edition of “one of the most divisive books in children’s literature.” Octavo, original boards, illustrated. Association copy, inscribed by Shel Silverstein on the front free endpaper to his editor and publicist William Cole with a drawing that extends over to the verso of the front panel of the story’s little boy beholding the stump of the giving tree which has been carved into the towering initials, “RAB.” The inscription reads, “Carvings on Bill Cole’s Stump – For You Know Who With Love – Shel.” The initials belong to the children of Cole’s three children: Rossa, Alex, and Billy. American editor and anthologist William Rossa Cole edited over 50 anthologies of verse for children and adults throughout his career which included tenures at Knopf, Simon & Schuster and Viking, where he had his own imprint, William Cole Books. Cole once revealed in his Saturday Review column his regrettable personal connection with The Giving Tree, “Shel came to me with a children’s book he’d written and I, an editor at Simon & Schuster, read it and told him: ‘Look, Shel, I like it but it won’t sell. It falls between a kids’ book and an adults. Forget it’. It went on to sell over a million copier, at Harper & Row. SO much for my perspicacity as an editor.” The book went on to sell over ten million copies. Very good in a very good dust jacket with with a few chips and closed tears. The dust jacket is priced at $2.50, the full torso picture of Shel Silverstein, with hair, covering top left half of back of the dust jacket, three reviews of Lafcadio, by the New York Times, Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly. Housed in a custom half morocco cloth and chemise case. One of the rarest modern children’s book, exceptionally scarce in this condition and inscribed by Silverstein to one of the central figures in his literary career.

One of the most widely interpreted and best-selling children's books of all time, The Giving Tree has sold over ten million copies since its first appearance in 1964. The book has been described as "one of the most divisive books in children's literature" for the various interpretations inspired by the relationship between the selfless female giving tree and the human boy who benefits from her gifts as he grows through adulthood into old age. Throughout the picture book, the boy benefits at all stages of life from the tree's gifts with little regard for the tree's well-being in return. This relationship has been interpreted as a representation of the relationship between man and nature, mother and child, and as the "Christian ideal of unconditional love" (Leonard, 2005).