1st UK trade edition, first printing. 226p, with colour plate frontispiece, five further colour plates and numerous line drawings in text, all by Beatrix Potter. In green cloth covered boards with black lettering front and spine, small line drawing on upper panel. 8vo. Cloth is marked, faded around margins, rubbed and rounded at corners and tips of a lightly sunned spine. Text block edges slightly toned. Very slightly shaken. Small nick in gutter between front endpapers else internally neat, clean and tight.
Potter did not intend for this tale of Tuppeny, a young guinea pig who runs away to join a travelling circus to be published: she considered it too personal and too autobiographical to allow wide readership and had written it for her own pleasure. She was persuaded however to have it published in the USA (by David Mackay, in 1929) and, to preserve her copyright in the UK, she had one hundred slightly altered copies privately printed. The first UK trade edition (of which this is an example) did not appear until 1952, nine years after Beatrix Potter's death.
