POTTER, Beatrix — Tale of Mr. Tod, the

London: Frederick Warne and Co. 1912. First Edition of "The Tale of Mr. Tod" POTTER, Beatrix. The Tale of Mr. Tod. London: Frederick Warne and Co. 1912. First edition. Twelvemo (5 3/8 x 4 1/8 inches; 137 x 105 mm.). 93, [1] pp. Color frontispiece and fourteen color plates (included in pagination). Black and white vignette on title-page and forty-one black and white vignettes in the text. Publisher's gray boards decoratively stamped and lettered in dark green on front cover within a dark green single rule border and decoratively stamped and lettered in dark green on spine. Large color pictorial label on front cover within a blind rectangular panel surrounded by a broad dark green single rule border. Color pictorial endpapers (Quinby Plate XI). Neat ink inscription on half title dated "24 November 1912". Spine slightly darkened, still an excellent copy. "The year 1912 appears on the front of the title-page of the first two printings, which are believed to be identical." (Linder). "Unlike Beatrix Potter's earlier books, the principal characters are villains!" Linder, A History of the Writings, p.210. A fine copy of the author's first book to be so well illustrated with pen & ink drawings, largely due to a loss of enthusiasm for making so many colour plates on her part. As a result Warne decided to create a wholly new series, 'The Peter Rabbit Books, Series II, New Style', with a new style of binding, which ran to two titles (the second being Pigling Bland), after which the books' format reverted to that of the others. Linder, p. 429; Quinby 21; V & A 1605. .