Cinderella by William Wegman - 1993 First Edition - Fay's Fairy Tales - Vintage Child Book, Wegman's Weimaraners, Battina

Starring Battina as Ella! 1993 first edition of Fay's Fairy Tales: Cinderella by William Wegman.

Photographed by William Wegman. Text by Carole Kismaric and Marvin Heiferman. 1993 first edition, first printing. Hyperion, New York.

"Once upon a time there lived a rich widowed gentleman and his lovely young daughter. Ella, as she was named, was beautiful, adorable, and intelligent. Her father was devoted to her, and she in turn loved him. She caused her father no trouble at all, but for reasons we shall never know, he thought she needed a mother's attention. He began looking for a wife. The woman he chose had two daughters about Ella's age. "Perfect," he thought, "Ella will have a mother to care for her and two sisters as playmates. She will never be sad or bored." All he cared about was Ella. This seemed like a perfect arrangement. Before he could find out otherwise, he died."

You know the rest of the story, which, fortunately, ends happily for Ella and the Prince. But you may not know about Battina, the actress who plays Ella.

William Wegman (1943 - ) began incorporating his Weimaraner dogs into his work in the 1970s.

"I didn't really want a puppy. I was too busy being an artist. But my wife did, so I promised her that when we got to California we would get one. I was hoping she would forget. It was a long drive to Los Angeles from Madison, where I had been teaching at the art department of the University of Wisconsin, but she didn't forget. When we arrived we decided to look for a Dalmatian. We couldn't find one. Apparently there was a Dalmatian shortage in 1970. Someone said Weimaraners were good dogs. I had never heard of them.

"We chose our six-week-old Weimaraner puppy from a litter in Long Beach, California. Sitting there in the dining room in a ray of light, he looked like a little old man. Except for a big case of chewy-itis, there was nothing puppylike about him. I named him Man Ray."

After Man Ray, there was Fay Ray, then her children Battina, Chundo, and Crooky, and Crooky and Batty's puppies, and so on. (There's a genealogy.)

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Condition*: Very Good/Very Good. Dust jacket: Moderate shelf wear. Inside: Faint smudge on front flyleaf, lower right. Pages are clean, undamaged, and complete.