MAXWELL, William

The Heavenly Tenants

First edition. Quarto. Pictures by Ilonka Karasz. Some foxing to the page edges, very near fine in very good dustwrapper with two chips on the front panel and some short tears. Author's scarce children's book, illustrated by a New Yorker colleague. This copy with a long Inscription by Maxwell at a later date, to an important editor: "May 7, 1980. Dear Bob, It was the artist's idea to put a salt-box house on a Wisconsin farm, and since the illustrator wanted it done, and also was my friend, I didn't have the heart to ask her to do it over again in the interests of verisimilitude. But the farm is a real farm, ten miles from Portage, and so far as I know unchanged to this day. I don't believe there has been much change in the heavens, either. You will find that same farm in 'Bright Center of Heaven' if you succeed in getting a copy, a thing I would not consider possible for anyone but you. Scarce as hen's teeth. But so is this. W.M." A wonderful inscription in an uncommon book.

[BTC #96563]