• Publication: The Twenty-One BalloonsPublication Record # 691291
• Author: William Pène du Bois
• Date: 1949-00-00
• Publisher: Robert Hale
• Price:
  10/6^?Prior to decimilisation (1968-1971), UK books were priced in shillings, or shillings and pence, where 20 shillings equals one pound and 12 old pence equals one shilling. Shillings were indicated with a variety of suffixes, e.g. 3s, 3', 3", 3/ all mean 3 shillings. Any number after that is additional pence, usually 6 (half a shilling) but sometimes 3 or 9 (a quarter of a shilling or three-quarters of a shilling).
• Pages: 179
• Format:
  hc^?Hardcover. Used for all hardbacks of any size.
• Type: NOVEL
• Notes:

  • 1st UK ed. Released if not published for the 1950 Christmas gift season
  • Year? • Title page undated (viewed as seller image at ABEbooks, below) • All three library records found at WorldCat (OCLC, below) report year 1949. Several dealers at ABEbooks all report year 1949. • All three items found 2018-11-07 in automated search of 1949/50 UK newspapers are from November/December 1950, including two reviews as Christmas books (below).
  • Price is from the only 3 items found in 1949/50 UK newspapers, from -11-12 to -12-02. Two are reviews, very positive: • Manchester Guardian 1950-11-28 p3, "With Proper Respect" by A.M.P.; "what seems the handsomest and relatively the cheapest book this Christmas" • New Statesman and Nation 40.1030 (1950-12-02) p547ff, "Christmas Books", section "Under the Mountain" by Naomi Lewis on non-realism in children fiction (much better than the realism now)
  • Cover? Dealers at ABEbooks describe yellow cloth boards (2) and red cloth boards (2). One of the latter provides images of jacket identical to that of the US 1st ed. at ISFDB (see); red cloth cover with black lettering; frontispiece and undated title page (bi=21986112760).
  • Dealers at ABEbooks all report 180 pages.
• External IDs:
  • OCLC/WorldCat: 752839968 752634993 560029093

Contents (view Concise Listing)

• The Twenty-One Balloons • juvenile • (1947) • novel by William Pène du Bois
•  The Twenty-One Balloons • (1947) • interior artwork by William Pène du Bois