Our Darlings' Surprise Pictures by TRANSFORMATION BOOK; WEATHERLY, Fred E.; FOSTER, William, illustrator

London: Ernest Nister, 1895. A Very Fine Ernest Nister Transformation Book [TRANSFORMATION BOOK] [WEATHERLY, Fred E.]. [FOSTER, William, illustrator]. Our Darlings' Surprise Pictures. [A Novel Panorama Picture Book]. London: Ernest Nister [n.d, ca. 1895]. Eight color transformation pictures with verses by Fred E. Weatherly. Black and white illustrations throughout. Small folio (12 1/2 x 9 7/8 inches; 317 x 250 mm.). Original color glazed pictorial boards, original red cloth backstrip, original blue-green floral endpapers. Inner hinges expertly and almost invisibly repaired. A very fine copy with the corners of the unmarked glazed boards nearly as sharp as on the day of publication. Over the past forty-five years I have handled many, many Transformation books but I have never had a copy of this title -DJB. "Another of the great makers of movable books was also a German - Ernest Nister, many of whose productions between 1891 to 1900 are regarded as among the most beautiful achievements of the entire genre... Ernest Nister's major contribution to the field was a large number of 'dissolving' picture books - developing further the earlier, rather rudimentary items produced by Dean - in which an illustration changed into a completely different scene at the pull of a tab. The effect was achieved through the pictures being printed on slats which slid over each other... One of Nister's busiest writers was a man named Frederic Edward Weatherly, (1848-1929), who, though he may not have been the most accomplished of poets, knew how to write verse that held the attention of children - a skill that he possibly developed reading to his own three children. Before turning to writing Weatherly had been a barrister, but he abandoned the law in favour of composing songs and verse, and during his life produced over thirty books for children." (Peter Haining. Movable Books - An Illustrated History, p.45).