Bemelmans, Ludwig | A first edition of the beloved children's book, Madeline

Works from the Collection of Jean Hart Kislak

Bemelmans, Ludwig

Madeline. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1939

Large 4to. 8 full-page color illustrations, the others in black, white, and yellow; neat contemporary ownership signature to half-title, occasional soiling. Publisher's pictorial boards and endpapers, pictorial dust jacket; light wear to extremities, light soiling to rear dust jacket. 

First edition, (with the date on the title page, and 12 girls pictured at the table in the illustration "In two straight lines they broke their bread.")  

The first book in the much-loved Madeline series of seven titles, the last of which was published in 1999 after Bemelmans' death. Four of the books, including this first story of Madeline's case of appendicitis, supplied the plot for the successful 1998 film adaptation.