772 - Meggendorfer, L.

Meggendorfer, L. Only for Well-Behaved Children. A transformable picture book with 12 exquisite color prints. 3rd ed. Esslingen and Munich, J. F. Schreiber, n.d. (1902). Landscape 4° (28.5 x 32.5 cm). [8] leaves with 6 color lithographic plates (each cut horizontally into four sections and backed with 6 additional panels in a louver-like arrangement) with a pull-out mechanism. Color-illustrated original cardboard binding. (Publisher’s No. 137).—Breitschwerdt Collection 131. HKJL IV, 612. Katzenheim, Meggendorfer 266. Krahé 110. Laub 198 (1980 reprint without the sixth plate). Ries 714, 102 and p. 56. Stuck-Villa I, 434. Wegehaupt IV, 1437. - First published in 1896. - The most beautiful of Meggendorfer’s four pull-tab picture books. - “Pull-tab picture book. Pulling the tab reveals a new image that is connected to the previous one in terms of the situation, yet stands in surprising, comical contrast to it. In a school scene, for example, the teacher is initially facing the blackboard, while the students in the desks are in an uproar; pulling the tab causes the teacher to look around, and immediately the students sit quietly, bent over their textbooks. Each scene is accompanied by a rhyming text that sometimes formulates a moral lesson” (M. Michels-Kohlhage in HJKL). — “Meggendorfer, too, created picture books using this transformation technique (the ‘blind’ technique). In these books, we are dealing with alternating image states that are completely independent of one another (often—as in the Nisters’ rotating picture books—not even connected in terms of content), one before and one after the transformation. Although the transition process in itself represents a gliding movement, this movement does not meaningfully align with elements of the images—apart from the deliberately abstract kaleidoscope effect or the effect that necessarily abstracts the image content. “The movement of transformation is thus merely an additional process, but one that is not integrated into the image” (H. Ries).—Spine slightly damaged in the lower third, dust jacket dusty, otherwise well preserved; all pull mechanisms fully functional.