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1953 · rif. 52352 — Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1953. 8vo. 86 2 pp. Illustrated half-title illustrated title page numerous text illustrations & plates 3 colour plates colour-illustrated endpapers. Blue-green coloured cloth illust. of doll in yellow holding parasol on front cover yellow lettering on spine very minor shelfwear minor rubbing & very slight bumping to lower corners w/ d.j. cover art of fashion doll by Bannon minor chipping head & foot of spine wear to corners minor rubbing upper corner clipped $ 2.25 price written in lower corner in pencil VG/VG copy. First edition of this remarkably rare and beloved children’s book surrounding the mystery and treasurer hunt for a 19th-century fashion doll in Peterborough NH by a young girl hidden by her ancestor in a secret room. Fashion dolls also called Queen Anne Dolls were often made of wood plaster or bisque with a fashionable hairstyle in flax or wool and dressed in miniature clothes showcasing the latest couture of the day. The most desirable dolls in the 19th-century were the French bisque dolls distributed all over Europe and were originally modeled on teen girls or adult women although these eventually changed over into child like bisque doll babies which would dominate the market from the 1860s onward. Bannon 1895-1963 was inspired to write this work while staying at the famed MacDowell Art Colony in Peterborough NH which carried a legend of a secret room in the MacDowell farmhouse. Original copies of this work have become quite scarce especially first editions. Houghton Mifflin Co., hardcover