Racketty-Packetty House by Frances Hodgson Burnett First Edition 1906 Hc

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The full title of the book is Rackety-Packetty House As Told by Queen Crosspatch, with Illustrations by Harrison Cady, and … Read more The full title of the book is Rackety-Packetty House As Told by Queen Crosspatch, with Illustrations by Harrison Cady, and it was published by The Century Co. in 1906. It’s a first edition because there is just a single date on the copyright page, with no other printings listed, it has black letters on the spine and front cover, a paste-down cover and blank endpapers, a colored frontis and illustrated title page, twenty colored illustrations counting the frontis page, 130 pages of text, and it’s a children's book about two dollhouses and the Racketty family of dolls who live in them.
From the preface:
Now this is the story about the doll family I liked and the doll family I didn't. When you read it you are to remember something I am going to tell you. This is it: If you think dolls never do anything you don't see them do, you are very much mistaken. When people are not looking at them they can do anything they choose. They can dance and sing and play on the piano and have all sorts of fun. But they can only move about and talk when people turn their backs and are not looking. If any one looks, they stop. Fairies know this and of course Fairies visit in all the dolls' houses where the dolls are agreeable. They will not associate, though, with dolls who are not nice. They never call or leave their cards at a doll's house where the dolls are proud or bad tempered. They are very particular. If you are conceited or ill-tempered yourself, you will never know a fairy as long as you live. — Queen Crosspatch
The story is of two dollhouses in a nursery, a dilapidated old one and a shiny new one, the story told from the perspective of a watchful fairy as one is cast aside and shoved in the corner while the other takes center stage and the lives of the doll families within. The new dolls are snooty and look down their noses at the old, ragged dolls – these poor dolls however are jolly and know how to have a good time despite their indigence. The beautiful Lady Patsy doll shows up on the scene and she and Peter Piper (antic ringleader of the poor dolls) and she fall in love.

Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849 - 1924) was a British-born author who moved to America at the end of the Civil War, her family ran onto hard times, so she turned to writing to earn money. Her first story was published in Godey's Lady's Book in 1868, she was published regularly in Godey’s, Scribner’s Magazine, and Harper’s Bazaar, and she is best known for her three children's novels - Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911). Little Lord Fauntleroy was the Harry Potter of his time and Burnett was as celebrated for creating him as J. K. Rowling is for creating Harry Potter. 
Walter Harrison Cady (1877 - 1970) was an American illustrator best known for his Peter Rabbit comic strip which he wrote and drew for 28 years. Born in Gardner, Mass., he moved to New York after his father was killed and he became a cartoonist for Life magazine, and his Peter Rabbit comic strip, which was based on Thornton Burgess' Peter Cottontail stories, was launched by the New York Herald Tribune Syndicate in August 1920; Cady had a long association with Burgess, illustrating the writer's books and his daily newspaper column, Bedtime Stories. Their partnership spanned five decades, and in the late 20’s, Cady wrote several of his own books, with his own illustrations.  
Reginald Birch (1856 - 1943) was an English-American artist and illustrator. He was best known for his depiction of the hero of Burnett's novel Little Lord Fauntleroy, which started a craze in juvenile fashion. See less