Tokyo: Soshisha Ltd, 1973. Three perfect-bound volumes in printed color wraps, in slipcase; 11 x 8.5 in.; unpaginated. With original publisher’s materials laid in to one of the volumes. Title pages give titles and publishing information in English, else all text in Japanese. Moderate bumping to leading corners and top spine corners of all three volumes. In a slipcase with related bruising at corners, mild fading to the spine of the orange bellyband, and some pulling and short tears to the cardboard around the staples. Altogether a very good (+) set, internally clean and unmarked.
First Japanese edition of this set of three children’s coloring books, each volume signed and inscribed by Laurel on the title page in the year of publication. In “Sylvie Sunflower,” a young girl gives a tour of her life on a rural commune, replete with geodesic domes. “The Family of Families” posits the one-ness of human beings with various species of animals. And “Happy Day! Cried the Rainbow Lady, Full of Light” follows a female protagonist on a wordless flight of fancy into the stars. Laurel (b. 1949) is an American artist and author best known for Living On The Earth, her 1970 guide to the back-to-the-land movement, which became an unlikely best-seller and cemented her distinctive line-drawings as one of the most recognizable visual aesthetics of the hippie era.
