Rip Van Winkle pair c.1870’s McLoughlin nice color litho picture books

Rip Van Winkle. (by Washington Irving). Aunt Louisa’s Big Picture series.

Published NY, c. 1865-75, McLoughlin Brothers. 24 pp. [counting covers].

2 copies of the same book but as issued with variant covers.

Complete collation coming soon, one copy is defective and lacking a leaf.

Spine repaired long ago with cloth, some pages loose, rear cover w/ small bottom corner area of sticker paper loss.

Much browsed and handled survival, assorted small minor age soiling, various signs of time and handling.

The survival rate of 19th century paper juvenile books such as this is quite low, a minuscule percentage of those originally produced.

So even if it were “a lot” made then, it would still be very modest by most modern standards of production.

Meaning the actual sales run of hand made books like this would have to be measured in low thousands, thus meaning survival rates probably below 100 -200 per title, with variations of course depending upon factors such as size, title, orig. price, condition, etc.

Therefore, all surviving examples of 19th century hand colored juveniles should be considered inherently scarce and worthy of acquisition on some level, given their actual comparative rarity, which is mostly invisible to the uninformed observer.

Book measures c. “H x “W.

B1519*