The 13 Clocks (INSCRIBED)

THURBER, James.

The 13 Clocks.

FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1950.

Inscribed by the author on the half-title, "Best Wishes," and signed "James Thurber." A first edition, first printing, with no later printing or printing line stated on the copyright page. Small octavo. 124 pp. Color and black-and-white illustrations by Marc Simont. Red cloth spine over blue paper-covered boards pictorially stamped in black, in the original publisher's color illustrated dust jacket. Fading to the spine, else fine, in an about-near-fine dust jacket.

The fairy tale Thurber wrote in Bermuda, where he had gone to finish another book entirely — "an example of escapism and self-indulgence," as he put it in his foreword. The story — Prince Zorn of Zorna disguised as a wandering minstrel; the wicked Duke who has frozen time by stopping all thirteen clocks; the enigmatic Golux, who speaks in half-truths; the Todal, a "blob of glup" that "makes a sound like rabbits screaming" — is among the most quoted children's books of the twentieth century.

SKU TO-2026-126