This is my weekly post where I highlight beautiful books from my collection. We all judge book covers to some extent (don’t lie, you totally do!) I created this feature to showcase and admire the art and design elements of some of the books I own. If covers didn’t matter, publishers wouldn’t make so many wonderful editions!
This little collection was published in 1969 by Ballantine Books and was illustrated by Pauline Baynes. I’ve not read it (“Jeeze, Millie, you say that so often you don’t even have to say it anymore!” I hear you say) because it’s somewhat fragile and, as you’ll see from the pictures, some of the pages are like…connected? It looks like they didn’t get cut properly before being bound. I tried to separate them when taking these pictures and the pages started to rip, because, like an idiot, I wasn’t using scissors, just my hands.
I cleverly ripped a page when trying to separate the two.
Might be hard to tell, but this is the seam of two pages completely joined together.
The one in the middle is me when I ripped the pages earlier.
I love Pauline Baynes! Her work has a kind of whimsicality to it that you don’t see very often.
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It’s probably well suited to this book, I assume. Haha. I like how it’s simple, yet…not. 🤣
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A really old book I found in a library once had never been cut (it seems in the old days the first person to read the book had to cut ALL the pages, and I turned out to be that person.) I remember using a flat table knife. A letter opener would probably work too. Scissors might actually make the job harder!
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Oh! Yes I have a letter opener that might be good. I think there are a few more uncut pages then the ones I found..so strange. Thanks for sharing though. I’m glad they changed that routine lol
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It’s so beautiful. Love the illustrations on the hardback.
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