London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1885. First edition. One of 1,000 copies of the first issue, with no mention of "Second Series" on advertisement page. A Very Good+ copy. Publisher's dark blue cloth with spine titled in gilt, with a normal apostrophe and "of" in smaller type – the priority of the binding states is undetermined, however, this binding may be earlier, as it appears that publisher's presentation copies have the normal apostrophe rather than the "7." Cloth with some spots of discoloration and some minor edgewear. Top-edge gilt, others trimmed. Armorial bookplate of Robert Long to upper pastedown. A very clean and fresh copy throughout, presenting very well.

Robert Louis Stevenson began writing poems for children in 1881. In 1883, forty-eight of those poems were collected and privately printed in Penny Whistles, of which there are only three known copies; further poems were added between 1883 and 1885, resulting in the beloved collection A Child's Garden of Verses. Stevenson "wrote from a child's perspective, his verses recalling the sickroom and solitary play, but also outdoor adventures and boisterous games. Humorous or poignant, the poems convey a child's curiosity and innocence, at once idealized and believable...Stevenson's deceptively simple verses convincingly convey the physical and emotional landscapes of childhood through a mature mastery of form and meter – an achievement arguably unprecedented" (Loker). Indeed, A Child's Garden of Verses was "the first sizable group of poems to capture a child's quality of imagination, sense of wonder and intense enjoyment of experience" (Meigs 293-4).

Grolier Club, One Hundred Books Famous in Children's Literature (ed. Chris Loker), 49.
Beinecke, 192-194. Prideaux, p. 35, #14. Osborne II 662. Very Good + (Item #8039)