Animal rhymes 20 titles published
between 1940 and 1980
Series
401 was Wills & Hepworth's
first Ladybird book series. The first title, Bunnikin's
Picnic Party, was published in 1940.
There were 20 titles published in this series between
1940 and 1980.
The first 18 titles were
originally published with dust-wrappers and pastedown
illustrations on their front boards.
This popular series of animal stories in rhyme was written
by A J MacGregor.
The stories were accompanied with wonderful full-page,
colour illustrations by the author and verses were set
by W Perring.
The series was an immediate success with young readers
who were introduced to the likes of Downy
Duckling, Piggly, The Five Little Kittens, Ginger
and many other endearing animal characters.
REPRINT HISTORY
When Wills & Hepworth stopped producing books with
dust-wrappers in 1965 only 8 of the original 18 titles
from series 401 continued to be issued as matt editions.
The 8 titles that continued to be reprinted were:
Bunnikin's Picnic Party
Ginger's Adventures
Smoke and Fluff
Piggly Plays Truant
Downy Duckling
Lost at the Fair
The Green Umbrella
Five Little Kittens.
However, for some reason, in the early 1970s a further
6 of the original titles were reissued again - this time
the covers changed for the last time to full pictorial
covers - the titles were:
The Runaway
Bunny's First Birthday
Bob Bushtail's Adventure
Mr Badger to the Rescue
The First Day of the Holidays
The Bunney-Fluff's Moving Day
However, there is an exception to the reprinting history
of series 401 which remains a bit of a mystery: Unlike
most of the 401 titles 4 of the original titles were never
to be published ever again as a matt editions - these
four titles were:
Jeremy's Day in the Country
Pippety's Unlucky Day
Jonathon's Shopping Day
High Tide
some collectors believe these abandoned four titles are
down to some kind of copyright issue that prevented further
printings - some say it was because these four titles
were not very good sellers - others have hinted that there
may have been a dispute betweenA
J MacGregor and Wills
& Hepworth, but there is no real evidence
so far to back any of these claims. I would suggest that
it was down to poor sales of the early printings
Books
published in series 401
Click any title for a SYNOPSIS, the OPENING
TEXT, .the CHARACTERS and KEYWORDS, as well as a guide
to IDENTIFYING the FIRST EDITION.
The
first edition issue points for the first 18
books in series 401
(the dust-wrappered editions)
A good way to identifying a first edition
Ladybird book from series 401 is to check
that it matches the following issue points:
1.
Your book
should have a dust-wrapper
2.
Your book should
have a small picture pasted on the front
board - the illustration is the same
image that appears on the dust-wrapper.
An exception to this is High Tide
which had a line illustration on the
front board.
3.
Your book should be
the last title listed on the rear flap
of the dust-wrapper, or not listed at
all.
4.
Your book should have
black & white pictorial endpapers
(not patterned).
5.
The pages of your
book should be creamy in colour and
NOT white.
6.
The text on the spine
of your book, of both the book itself and
it's dust-wrapper should be written from bottom
to top?
7.
Your book should
state "First published, 19XX"
on the front endpaper, or mention no
date at all.
8.
Your book should
have a catalogue page, or pages, at
the rear of the book showing books in
other Ladybird series. The last title
listed on the catalougue page should
NOT be a a book that was published later
than the book you are dating.
The Tinker's Wig (series 478) is the only Ladybird book to have gilt lettering used on it's front board -it was also twice the size of a standard Ladybird book.
