Tail Feathers From Mother Goose by Iona Opie - The Opie Rhyme Book - First Edition Children's Books - Vintage Child Book, 1980s

First edition of Tail Feathers From Mother Goose, The Opie Rhyme Book, a collection of previously unpublished rhymes wonderfully illustrated by sixty children's book artists.

Collected by Peter and Iona Opie. Illustrated by various artists. Stated first edition, first printing, 1988. Little, Brown and Company.

"Call John the boatman
Call, call again.
For loud flows the river
and fast falls the rain.
John is a good man and sleeps very sound;
His oars are at rest and his boat is aground.
Fast flows the river so rapid and deep;
The louder you call him, the sounder he'll sleep."

Over the course of their lifetimes, Peter and Iona Opie famously collected and curated The Opie Collection of Children's Literature, a million-dollar collection that's housed at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University.

Iona Opie chose the rhymes for this book from their collection, and most were published here for the first time. They include versions of known nursery rhymes or rhymes people sent to the. As stated on the front flap, "In this remarkable book, lighthearted verses are followed by magical, mystifying, or romantic ones."

The rhymes are illustrated by sixty beloved children's book illustrators. Maurice Sendak did the cover art and other artists include Reg Cartwright, Anne Dalton, Mary Rees, Ross Bell Corfeld, Quentin Blake, Janet Marsh, Patrick Benson, Angela Barrett, Louise Brierley, Inga Moore, Anthony Browne, Fritz Wegner, and P. J. Lynch.

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Condition*: Very Good/Very Good. Dust jacket: mild shelf wear; small closed tear on the front, bottom edge; two small closed tears near the head of the spine; a group of incised scratches on the back (as if someone wrote on a piece of paper laid on top of the book). Book: minor bumps at head and tail of the spine; wear on lower corners; small dents on the leading and bottom edges; previous owner's name on a bookplate on the front endpaper.

*Based on guidelines of the Independent Online Booksellers' Association.