Friday, December 7, 2012

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer pop-up book / 1939


A bit of seasonal cheer on Past Print.  The story was written by Robert May for Montgomery Ward and given away in their stores during the 1939 holiday season. This pop-up Rudolph was published in 1939 by Adprint in London in conjunction with Maxton books in New York.  I think the 1939 Maxton version was just an illustrated book, they published the pop-up one in 1950.  The story still seems to be a children’s favorite, probably because the song is always played at Christmas. 
    I had the book when I was small and surprisingly it doesn’t show much wear even though it must have been looked through dozens of times over the years.  Now my grandchildren are frequent page-turners at Christmas time. 
    The illustrations by Marion Guild have a lovely warm appeal just like the words.  I always thought the addition of the plane, on the second pop-up, gave the story a contemporary feel of the times back then.  Her pop-ups are fairly basic but cleverly worked out though nothing like the intricacies of Robert Sabuda’s best Christmas pop-up books from the last decade.  I think his best was A winter's tale (ISBN 978-0689853630) full of amazing paper engineering and on the last spread the use of colored LED lights.
 











4 comments:

  1. Amazing. Thanks and Merry Christmas!

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  2. I remember this as a child, where can I get a copy PLEASE. Happy Christmas.

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  3. If you want this Adprint, London edition it seems it will cost. Abebooks has it at £45/$75. Maxton published their edition in 1950 (and I assume it is identical) which will be cheaper. Check out the title on Abebooks, Alibris and Amazon but make sure it's the pop-up version and published in 1939 or 1950.

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  4. Hello,
    My name is Ketty and I am a miniaturist. I literally fell in love with Rudolph's book, which he published on December 7, 2012.
    I would love to reproduce it in miniature and I wondered if you were available to take more pictures for me. They would help me a lot to reproduce this beautiful book in miniature. If it is possible, please contact me at this address kettyp@libero.it
    Thanks so much

    ReplyDelete