I've not been a presence in Blogland very much for quite some time. But from the very start I had a wishlist of books and paper dolls I hoped I'd be able to acquire both for my own private collection and to share on this blog for others to enjoy.
This book topped that wishlist. I was given a copy as a child by someone in my family (one of my father's sisters I think). But the dolls and clothes had long since been removed. All I could see of them were the jagged edges of pages and the odd scrap of detail that had tantalisingly been left behind, Even without the dolls I still loved the book and I was very sad as an adult to realise it had been lost along the way.
Today copies in mint condition with the dolls and clothes intact are highly sought after and relatively rare. They command high prices - usually I'd baulk at spending quite so much on a book but I thought this one was worth it. I've spent years trying to find one and now I'm thrilled to discover it is every bit as magical as I hoped it would be.
I'm sorry I've felt the need to disfigure each of these pages with a watermark but I've learnt the hard way that there are a lot of unscrupulous people out there. I've come across my own images brazenly plastered all over other websites and blogs and I was once alerted to the fact that someone was trying to make money out of selling some of my scans. So while I've not placed these across the middle of each image to totally ruin them I have had to make it difficult for someone else to pass them off as their own.
Besides the dolls the book contains the classic Disney version of Sleeping Beauty. I'm only including the frontispiece and one other page here - this was my favourite illustration and I think the wonderful glowing effect is just as appealing today as I remember it was when I was young
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