The Cradle Ship
London, Cassell and Company, November 1916 (second impression)/ September 1916.
Large octavo, [x], 220 pages plus 4 colour plates by Florence Mary Anderson.
Cloth decorated and lettered in gilt on the spine, with the front cover decorated and lettered in blind, with an oval colour-pictorial onlay (a detail from the frontispiece); cloth lightly rubbed, bumped and marked, with the onlay lightly scuffed; contemporary ownership details on the front free endpaper; an excellent copy.
Edith Annie Howes (1872-1954), teacher, writer and educationalist, was born in England but emigrated to New Zealand at a young age. 'In all she wrote about 30 books for children, some of which were reprinted many times. The most famous were "Fairy Rings" (1911) ... and "The Cradle Ship" (1916), which ran to 18 reprints with translations into French, Italian and Danish. A landmark attempt to provide children with sex education, it conceded that babies grew within the mother's body (although the site was only hinted at: a "silken baby-bag" beneath the heart), and that a birth process took place. While much of Howes's writing centres on a mythical fairy world which today seems naïve, her best work shows a delicacy of touch and a fine eye for detail' ('New Zealand Dictionary of Biography').
Item #121395
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