The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. Seuss

New York, New York: Vanguard Press. Hardcover. near fine. unpaginated. Quarto. Original red cloth backed spine with illustrated black paper covered boards. Illustrated endpapers. Previous owner's bookplate to front pastedown. Wonderful black and white illustrations throughout the text, with the only colour being the red hats. Some rubbing along the edges of the boards; bumping to both of the top corners. A very minor amount of wear to the fore-edge of the text block. Some wear along the edges of the dust jacket, with a couple of closed tears starting. The illustrated dust jacket does not have a price on either the front or back inner flap, nor do the hats on endpapers match the first issue hats, making this a later reprint of the first edition. Overall, a very good copy. The second book written by Dr. Seuss. This book is written in prose rather than his usual rhyming style. The author collected hats, got the idea for the story on a commuter train from New York to New England while he was sitting behind a businessman wearing a hat - the passenger was so stiff and formal that he wondered what would happen if he took the man's hat and threw it out the window. Seuss concluded that the man was so "stuffy" he would just grow a new one. Originally published in 1938, this is a later reprint of the first edition.