A LARGE-FORMAT LINEN-BACKED CHILDREN's BOOK. ‘Super-royal 8vo’ [25 x 17.5 cm]. 8 pp on (8) ff including illustrated covers; all leaves backed with linen. With 8 half-page wood-engravings in text, all finished with handcolor. Spine frayed but holding; extremities a little worn, but overall a well-preserved specimen of this kind of publication. Small patch of abrasion to background of engravings on pp 7/8 due to color adhesion. Extremely rare large-format, linen-backed edition of this children’s tale, following the adventures of a workhouse orphan who climbs up in the world thanks to his cat. The work seems to represent an interesting chapter in the evolution of linen printing: a slightly earlier body of children’s literature was printed directly onto linen but did not survive well (the ink often fading), but here we see the publishers utilizing paper’s superior ink-carrying abilities while still profiting from the durability of the underlying linen backing sheets. The present work was issued in a series of ‘Aunt Mavor’s Everlasting Toy Books’, which according to the covers were sold with ‘Large Coloured Illustrations, and Fancy Covers’ for one shilling each. The rear cover contains a complete list of all the ‘Toy Books’ in the series: most, but not all, were available mounted on linen, although the price doubled compared to those on paper (6d each). Ironically, linen-printed items tend to survive quite poorly; this example is relatively well-preserved, especially for its unusually large format. Of this linen-backed edition, we have traced just one copy worldwide, curiously held at the Westpoint Military Academy in New York. COPAC shows no copies in UK libraries, although the V & A, for example, holds the 6d paper-printed edition. * OCLC: 40045707