(If you haven't seen the introductory material at the "parent" page of this page, please read it at some point.)
You might want to start a collection of AA Milne/ EH Shepard books with the basic "trade" first editions....
...which is fine... but...
Do you "just" want the trade edition... or do you want a first (trade) edition with dust-jacket. That is how they were produced.
The dust-jacket is often darkened on the spine. At first I thought this was merely an accumulation of "stuff" from children's hands, but then I noticed that the distribution argues against this theory. It it almost as if the paper darkens in the sun, begins to look "grubby". After collecting Milne/Shepards for a number of years, one reached me with a dust jacket which is very nice on the front and back, and typical the darkening on the spine. But, looking closely at this example, I at first wondered if it were a film of sublimated nicotine. A few careful (not recommended!) experiments with (separately) alcohol and lighter fluid (wonderful on some modern, glossy dust jackets) were entirely ineffective. However, in the course of that, it occured to me that what I was seeing was almost like a "varnish", lying on top of the paper. For one thing, it was "cracked" in places. Some very careful scraping was quite successful... but it would take over an hour to do one spine, and moments of impatience would be punished harshly. I'm not recommending that "answer"... however, it establishes the fact that the "darkening" is something on the surface, at least in some cases. A protective lacquer applied by the publisher? Well, maybe... but if so, why just the spine? And how would that be done?
In the case of the first book, When We Were Very Young, there is a variant in the first trade edition. In the pages before "page 1", the 9th page (first page of table of contents) sometimes has an "ix" at the bottom, sometimes does not. A major Milne dealer I have come to trust states in an Abebooks listing that the ix-less form appeared first.
Colors: As far as I know, the first editions of the trade binding each came in only one color....
In 1934, a fifth edition of House At Pooh Corner came out, in a less expensive binding. In those less mealy-mouthed days, the publishers quite baldly referred to it as a "cheaper" edition. Less expensive to produce, perhaps. Affordable to a wider audience. The paper and printing inside the book seem as good as in the "ordinary" special editions. (I started with this one only because it was the first "cheaper" I saw.)
Since seeing the "cheaper" House At Pooh Corner, I've seen copies of the other "cheaper"s... with dust jackets, by the way. These are the earliest editions I've seen in the "cheaper" version. for each title...
(Oh dear! I was doing some work on this page in October 14, and went to look something up, and discovered another "set" I "need": There are editions of Now We Are Six for at least "Now We Are Seventy", and for "Now We Are Seventy-Five". I shudder to think how many others exist in this line! With, no doubt, "uniform" printings of the other three titles to match! (I have written elsewhere about the 50th anniversary set... which I find disappointing. I don't like the printing and binding.)
One last "trivial" point: The first printing of When We Were Very Young was in 1924. Respected booksellers mention that perhaps only 4,500 copies were released in the first print run. The dustjacket of the 25th ("and cheaper"!) edition of 1934 says that it was by then in its two hundred and forty sixth thousand. Of course, it was selling worldwide, but if those copies were distributed across just the population of the day in the UK, each copy would have to be shared by only 18 people.
And now you can return to the page with an overview of collecting the Winnie-The-Pooh books from AA Milne and EH Shepard... or, if you came here from there, just close the tab or window this is in, and you should find the overview page underneath it.
Editor's email address for comments or questions.
Page TO BE tested for compliance with INDUSTRY (not MS-only) standards, using the free, publicly accessible validator at validator.w3.org. Mostly passes. There were two "unknown attributes" in Google+ button code. Sigh.
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