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The Three Bears (tiny Raphael Tuck)

London, Paris, New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, No 26, (between 1881 and 1895), "designed in England, printed in Germany", no dedication; six cut-out, embossed, die-cut panels, one sided chromolitho illustrations, all but the first and last panel set inside the bears' house,with the characters silhouetted against the cut out windows and door and foliage and trees visible outside; small hand lettered rhymed couplets at the bottom of the pages tell the story; 3" x 4.5" Toploader oversized story.

Deeply embossed and highly coloured, this little book formed one of The Youngster's Library Series 1, Twelve different "Panorama" Toy Books (as pictured in Whitton, p 164, ill 162). It is scarce, not from the later Picture Panoramas series. The panels of this Three Bears book can be found in pieces sold as Victorian scrap, and must have been used in that way, (Whitton calls these "scrap panoramas"). But this intact panorama forms a fascinating tiny story, with clothed but quite menacing bears: "From the window jumped Golden-locks and home quickly flew/ Or the bears might have killed her and eaten her too."

CONDITION: Good; no names or other marks, bright, flat, and clean with all folds and some corners rubbed, closed 1" cut on title panel, very tiny scuff on another, 1/8" chip off bottom corner of last panel; two panels have been reattached using German archival (reversible) tape. Item #21864

Price: $165.00

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