Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - October - 2009 Issue
Children's Books from Aleph-Bet Books
Buster Brown's toothy sidekick Tige.
Edith Nesbit employed some similar imaginative drawings in her Voyage of Columbus Discovery of America, published in 1892. Rather than employing animals, she portrayed Columbus, his men, and the Indians who met them, as children. One can only wonder had her vision been true, would we have a more peaceable world or would America have devolved into the Lord of the Flies? Item 428. $1,500.
Do you remember who lived in Buster Brown's shoes, besides Buster himself? Here is his story. Buster Brown was one of the first comic strips, created by the originator of modern comic strips, Richard Outcault, also creator of the first strip, The Yellow Kid. Buster Brown had the appearance of a proper young man, dressed in his Little Lord Fautleroy outfit. Nevertheless, he was always getting into mischief, being punished, only to get into trouble again. Brown also had a unique cohort, a dog named "Tige," who spoke to him, but not to adults. It was a very popular strip, but faded out after a couple of decades. However, Buster Brown and Tige were adopted by the Brown Shoe Company as their symbol. The comic has been gone for almost a century, but Brown and Tige live on as the shoe brand's symbol. Item 441 is Outcault's Tige: His Story, published in 1905. $200.
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