Comics Inspired Picture Book, Signed
The Great Duffy
Publication: New York: Harper and Brothers, 1946. First Edition.
Notes: A first edition in the scarce dust jacket, inscribed by Ruth Krauss to Michael di Capua, an influential editor who reissued several of her books.
The Great Duffy brought the superhero fantasy of comic books into the mainstream picture-book world. When Tommy Jefferson Duffy is judged too young to walk all the way to school alone, he transforms in his imagination into the caped Great Duffy and embarks upon an adventure involving cars, trolleys, and airplanes. Mischa Richter, a New Yorker cartoonist, presents Tommy’s ordinary life in gray-and-black drawings and his superhero adventures in color.
In 1946, comic books were controversial, and it is remarkable that a writer with the stature of Krauss adapted the form. The book’s contemporary Kirkus Reviews recommended it to parents who wished to “wean small sons from too constant demand for the comics.” Yet Krauss and Richter do not offer a respectable substitute, instead they appropriate the superhero to convey the imaginative life of a child.
[32] pages. Color pages printed in black, red, blue, and yellow.
Edition + Condition: First edition (first printing, with $1.75 price on front flap of the dust jacket). A very good copy in illustrated boards, in the uncommon dust jacket which is split down about two-thirds of the spine and has chips and tears to the corners and edges. This copy is inscribed by Krauss to editor and publisher Michael di Capua on the front free endpaper: “For Mike from Ruth.”
Michael di Capua spearheaded HarperCollins’s reissues of Maurice Sendak’s out-of-print books, including four of Sendak’s collaborations with Krauss. In 2005, Michael di Capua Books published Bears, pairing Krauss’s 1948 text with new illustrations by Sendak. Di Capua was among the most distinguished American editors of his generation. A nice association between a writer and one of her editors.
Provenance: Michael di Capua; Clouds Hill Books
Item No: #366393
Price: $350