Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1906. First Edition. Russet cloth with gilt titles and vignettes. Map of Kensington Gardens on the front free endpaper. Shelf-wear to covers, heavy spotting to preliminary leaves including title page also, with neat gift inscription (dated 1907). The remaining text in nice bright condition.
Colour frontispiece and 49 colour plates mounted at the end of the text (as called for in the first issue) by Arthur Rackham. 

In 1902 J. M. Barrie wrote a novel ‘The Little White Bird’ – the central chapters of which tell of a child named Peter Pan who escaped from being a human when he was seven days old and flew back to Kensington Gardens. The first book to appear with the title of ‘Peter Pan’ was this 1906 version to which Arthur Rackham provided 50 magnificent colour illustrations.

A contemporary review of this book published in The World reads: ‘Mr Barrie has done what no one else has done since the inventor of ‘Alice’ he has invented a new legend, a modern folk story which comprehends all the innermost secrets of the modern child, be he four or forty. Mr Rackham, for his part, has been bewitched in his cradle: he does not dream of fairies or hobgoblins, he knows them.’