This lot consists of three children's books by Thornton Burgess that were published circa the 1920's. They are The Adventures Of Ol' Mistah Buzzard, The Burgess Animal Book For Children, and The Burgess Seashore Book For Children, all published by Little Brown and all in their own custom-made slipcases ("boxes"). The Adventures Of Ol' Mistah Buzzard was published in 1919 and it's first edition. (The dates on the title page and copyright page match, with just a single date and no other printings, which makes this a first edition, and it is one of the Bedtime Story-Books Burgess was famous for. It comes in a gray cloth, with the title, author and publisher on the spine, a decorated cover with a red border and animal critters in red and black, blank endpapers, a list of books by Thornton Burgess after the half title, an illustrated frontis of Ol' Mistah Buzzard, the title page, which says the illustrations were done by Harrison Cady, the copyright page is dated 1919, followed by two pages of Contents, a List of illustrations, 119 pages of text, and the six illustrations are in black and white. The Burgess Animal Book For Children was published in 1920, but we can't tell you if it's a first edition because half the title page is missing. It comes in a green cloth with a paste-down cover, blank endpapers with a small bookstore label (Lauriat's of Boston), the half-title and a list of Bedtime Story-Books by Burgess, a colored frontis of bison, aka as buffalo, then the title page, a page dedicated to wildlife in America, a three-page Preface, four pages of Contents, four pages for a List of Illustrations, 353 pages of text, a nine-page Index that runs to page 363, and black-and-white and colored illustrations. The Burgess Seashore Book for Children was published in 1929 and it is a first edition (there is just a single date of 1929 on the copyright page), it has a beautiful paste-down cover, blank endpapers with a small bookstore label (Lauriat's of Boston), then the half title, a black and white frontis, the title page followed by the copyright page, a two-page Preface, four pages of Contents, a List of Illustrations, 293 pages of text, an appendix that runs to 329, a six-page index, for total of 336 pages in the book, all the plates are in black and white, and it comes with the original dust jacket. The picture on the dust jacket also matches the paste-down picture on the front cover of the book, and it has the original price of $1.00 on the front flap of the dust jacket. All three books come in custom-made boxes with linen beige cloth, gilt lettering and black labels on the spine, and green paisley decorations that wrap around the edges. Thornton Burgess (1874 - 1965) was an American author of children's books. Born in Sandwich, Massachusetts, he lived in humble circumstances, and one of his employers lived on Discovery Hill Road, a wildlife habitat of woodland and wetland, which became the setting of many stories for Burgess's books. He moved to Springfield, Mass. and married in 1905, but his wife died in childbirth a year later, leaving him to raise their son alone, and rumor had it that he began writing bedtime stories to entertain his son. These became the basis for his Bedtime Story-Book series. He was sometimes known as the Bedtime Story-Man, after his newspaper column Bedtime Stories. He also used his outdoor observations of nature as plots for his other stories, and by the time he retired, he had written more than 170 books and 15,000 stories for the daily newspaper column. His characters included Reddy Fox, Johnny Chuck, Peter Cottontail, Buster Bear, Billy Possum, Jerry Muskrat, Old Mr. Toad, Peter Rabbit and many others. Harrison Cady (1877 - 1970) was an American illustrator and author, best known for his Peter Rabbit comic strip which he wrote and drew for 28 years. The comic strip, which was based on Thornton Burgess' Peter Cottontail stories (as opposed to Beatrix Potter's version) was launched by the New York Herald Tribune Syndicate in 1920. He continued to write and draw the strip for almost three decades and had a long association with Burgess, illustrating the writer's books and his daily newspaper column, Bedtime Stories. Their partnership began with Buster Bear Invites Old Mr. Toad to Dine (1914) and continued into the 1950's with At Paddy the Beaver's Pond, followed by the reprint of The Animal World of Thornton Burgess in 1962. The Ol' Mistah Buzzard book measures 6 7/8 x 4 7/8 in. wide, the Animal Book for Children measures 8 x 5 3/4 in. wide, and the Seashore book measures 8 x 5 3/4 in. wide, all three books have clean pages and tight bindings, and the only real blemishes are the half page missing on the title page of the Animal Book, a tear on the half-title page of the same book, and small incisions to the moose body on the front cover of the Animal Book. There is a light scratch on the back cover of Ol' Mistah Buzzard, light bumps on the heel and crown of Ol' Mistah Buzzard, and specks of rubbing at the tips, and the Animal Book has light bumps on the heel and crown of the spine and a tad of rubbing at the tips, and a small blemish on the black label on the spine of the custom box, and the Seashore book has light bumps on the heel of the spine and a speck of rubbing at the tips, while the dust jacket for the book has a few small chips, and other than that the dust jacket is in very good condition. The dust jacket is scarce and hard to find too, especially in this condition. The custom boxes are clean and very attractive too. The insides are clean and look brand new, and even with the strip missing on the title page for the Animal Book, a nice gift set for children. That's what Thornton would have wanted. See Bill McBride's A Pocket Guide to the Identification of First Editions. #36 #7048