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Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Two publications by the Merrythought Press, with later archive, 1924, 1925, 1983

Two publications by the Merrythought Press, with later archive, 1924, 1925, 1983

Wellesley, MA: Merrythought Press
948
Two small chapbooks, the 1924 edition with (6)pp, the 1925 with (4)pp. The 1924 publication titles itself as Leo: A Yellow Cat, by Margaret Sherwood, and also includes poems by...
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Two small chapbooks, the 1924 edition with (6)pp, the 1925 with (4)pp. The 1924 publication titles itself as Leo: A Yellow Cat, by Margaret Sherwood, and also includes poems by Josephine Preston Peabody and Katharine Lee Bates, who graduated from and taught at the College. The subsequent edition leaves out Bates' contribution, but is otherwise substantively similar, including a two-line opening initial for Sherwood's poem. Both are stated as Wellesley Poems Number Three, and are bound in orange wrappers with a reverse silhouette of a cat at the upper cover. The Merrythought Press was operated by June Barrows Mussey. At the time of printing, Mussey was fourteen and fifteen years old, and had already established himself as a public figure when, at thirteen, he took up the pseudonym Hajii Babba and toured the country as an amateur magician. Later on, Mussey would adopt a different pen name, Henry Hay, and as Hay wrote several books on magic and, notably, completed a full translation of Mein Kampf for Stackpole Sons in 1939.

The accompanying ephemera comprises a memo from Marilyn Hatch who ran Wellesley's Book Arts Lab and Annis Press. Hatch attaches photocopies of various Merrythought ephemera, including a broadside (undated), an advertisement (1923), and an invitation to Mediaeval May-Day Revels (1925).
Booklets show light soiling, else fine.
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