This is an attractive first edition, first issue of Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verses", published by Longmans Green in 1885, and it comes with a felt-lined custom-fitted box. The book is bound in the original blue cloth, with gilt lettering and horizontal gilt-ruled lines on the spine, the rounded apostrophe in "Child's" and the smaller "of" in the title on the spine, the publisher's ship device in gilt on the front cover, and the ad for books by Stevenson facing the half-title does not mention "Two Series" - that has been left off the list - and that qualifies the book as a first issue of the first edition. The book has bevelled edges, blank endpapers, the front flyleaf has an owner's name and the date of 1876 inscribed on it, the page before the title page says the book was printed by Spottiswoode & Co. in London, the title page also has the publisher's ship logo on it and the bottom of the page says the book was published in London by Longmans Green in 1885, there are 66 poems listed on the four Contents pages - it is easy to miscount the number of poems until you realize that poem number XLI has three poems with it, for a total of 66 poems on the four Contents pages - and there are 101 pages in the book altogether; Spottiswoode is mentioned as the printer again at the bottom of page 101, and the top edge is gilt. The second issue is identical to the first issue save for mention of "Two Series" in the list of author's books facing the half-title - if the book list facing the half-title mentioned "Two Series", that would have made the book a first edition in the second issue. The second issue also has the apostrophe lettering on the spine like "a number 7" and the word "of" is in larger print, instead of the smaller print for "of" in the first issue. (The preferred binding in which the apostrophe in the word "Child's" on the spine has a curved tail is quite scarce thus. Other copies of the first edition, and second editions as well, have been noted in which this apostrophe resembles a small figure seven.) Robert Lous Stevenson (1850 - 1894) was a Scottish author and poet who is best known for writing "Treasure Island", "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", "Kidnapped" and "A Child's Garden of Verses", and not much else needs to be said about him. The book measures 6 1/2 x 4 1/2 in. wide, the binding is tight and the pages are clean, except for the front paste-down, which has light offset on it, and the front flyleaf has brown marks on it, like dried glue that has left a stain. (We don't believe the brown marks are foxing, not at all.) There are light bumps on the heel of the spine and the horizontal gilt rules on the spine are a bit faded, there is a tad of rubbing at the tips, the rear endpapers have some offset on them, as if newspaper articles had been placed in between the two pages, and the slipcase is solid, with bright gilt lettering on the spine of the slipcase and a couple of small marks on the edges and that's it, and still an attractive copy of this first issue of the first edition of this wonderful poetry book by Stevenson. #3 #1668