Lot 190: BAUM, L. FRANK. 1856-1919. NEILL, JOHN R. 1877-1943. The Emerald City of Oz. Chicago: Reilly & Britton Co., [1910].

BAUM, L. FRANK. 1856-1919. NEILL, JOHN R. 1877-1943.
The Emerald City of Oz. Chicago: Reilly & Britton Co., [1910]. 8vo (229 x 170 mm). 16 color plates. Original navy blue cloth with earliest pictorial label, covers rubbed with some loss, bottom of spine frayed; internal fingermarks. EXTREMELY RARE, PRESENTATION COPY OF FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING, warmly inscribed in ink on the ownership leaf: "Having been presented by her own true lover/ L. Frank Baum/ August 1910." The inscription must have been a private joke for Miss Kneedler (later Mrs. Brix) who could not have been more than 16 at the time, and was the daughter of Baum's friend Major William L. Kneedler, a military medical officer stationed in San Diego and later President Taft's personal physician. The Emerald City of Oz was intended to be the last of the Oz Books; and the publishers produced arguably the most beautiful volume of the entire series. Neill outdid himself in the numerous elaborate pen-and-ink drawings and the suite of sixteen exquisite watercolors that were printed with green metallic ink. Only the first printing has a full-color pictorial cover label highlighted with gold and silver ink that depicts Dorothy and her friends riding in the red wagon pulled by the Sawhorse through the Emerald City. All later printings used less elaborate designs. No other inscribed first printing of this title is known to have been offered at auction.