MIKE MULLIGAN AND HIS STEAM SHOVEL by Burton, Virginia Lee - 1939

NEW YORK: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1939. FIRST EDITION. Hardcover. Good Plus in Very Good Minus Dustjacket. Virginia Lee Burton. First Edition, in probable second issue dj with all requisite points (1939 on title page, advertisement for Choo Choo on rear dustjacket flap, title only to yellow dustjacket spine with publisher's name abbreviated, except price on front flap, which is $2). Five or six small closed tears at bottom of pages, plus some kidsmudging. bottom quarter of several pages appears smudged, erased maybe. A really well-loved copy. Dust jacket Very good minus, with a chip, a closed tear, and two small rubbed through places on spine. Solid copy of beloved children's classic, alas-yet-appropriately, owned and finger-loved, by children! Story features Mike Mulligan and his beloved steam shovel Mary Anne, who together, with pride and craft, excavated dirt for highways, railroads, skyscrapers, and canals. Faced with impinging pressure from newfangled gasoline- and diesel-powered motor shovels, Mike and Mary Anne felt edged out. Finally the two of them landed a job excavating for the new town hall in Popperville and here the story turns. Must read the book, for this and other reasons, not least among them being that it was this bookseller's FBE - FAVORITE BOOK EVER!