Beschreibung:

PIPER, Watty, pseudonym. The Little Engine That Could . New York: Platt and Munk, 1930. 8 o. Illustrated by Lois L. Lenski. Original red cloth with paper pictorial label on front cover, illustrated endpapers (some very pale spotting to label); pictorial dust jacket (a few tape repairs on verso, a few chips and small tears, some soiling). Provenance : David Haegg (gift inscription on half-title); R.C. Haegg (ownership stamp on front and back pastedown and front flap of dust jacket). FIRST EDITION of this children's classic containing the famous phrase " I think I can. I think I can." Although "Watty Piper," a pseudonym created by the publishers, was credited with the retelling of this story, the original version, entitled The Pony Engine , is attributed to Mabel C. Bragg on the title-page of this edition. Ms. Bragg, who was a well-known educator in Boston, never claimed to have originated the story, and it was in fact a woman named Mary Jacobs who wrote The Pony Engine in 1910. The earliest known published version of the tale, although it is much shorter, appeared in Wellspring for Young People , a children's Sunday school publication in 1906 with no author listed.