"Little Mistress Valentia" -- in Nister's PASTIME TALES.
London: Ernest Nister, n.d. [1912]. Original color-pictorial paper-covered boards with blue-grey cloth spine.
Early appearance of this Henty tale, in this Nister book for children, printed in Bavaria. Nister had already included "Little Mistress Valentia" in his IN THE CHIMNEY CORNER of 1899 and in his Holiday Annual of 1905; this is its third appearance. Very curiously for an author then so famous, Henty's name does not appear on the title page -- though four other contributors do, including G. Manville Fenn and L. T. Meade.
This copy does not have ads printed on the rear endpaper (some do -- no known priority); those ads cite the 25th Nister's Holiday Annual, which came out in late 1912 -- thus dating this volume.
This is a very good-plus copy, with less than the usual amount of soil and edge-wear. PASTIME TALES is generally regarded as one of the scarcest of Henty's Nister appearances -- often overlooked, due to there being no hint of him on the binding or title page. Newbolt 169.1 (indicating pink spine cloth -- but this clearly is original blue-grey cloth on this copy, and we have also seen dark blue). Item #13758
Price: $200.00