String Figures. A Study of Cat's-Cradle in Many Lands With an Ethnological Introduction by Alfred C. Haddon. Illustrated.

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First edition, inscribed by the author on the front flyleaf. Large octavo (10 1/2 x 7 1/4 inches; 265 x 185 mm). xxiii, 91, blank], 407, [1, blank] pp. With seventeen black-and-white photographic plates, including frontispiece and over eight hundred illustrations in the text. Publisher's full blue cloth. Front board ruled and stamped in blind, lettered in gilt. Spine stamped and lettered in gilt. Top edges gilt, others uncut. A few leaves unopened. Brown coated endpapers. Previous owner, Dr. Wesley Wilbur Beckett's bookplate on front pastedown. Beckett was a Southern California surgeon and president of the California Medical Association. Some minor rubbing to edges of cloth. A bit of soiling to top of front board. Otherwise a near fine copy. Caroline Furness Jayne "was an American ethnologist who published the first book on string figures in 1906 titled String Figures: A Study of Cat's Cradle in Many Lands. Jayne became interested in string figures through her brother, William Henry Furness III's anthropology work with Alfred Haddon studying native cultures where string game figures were used. Jayne was the first to create a popular study of string figures built on academic papers from journals such as The Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and other foreign language anthropological journals. She also personally recorded string figures from several native groups that were in attendance at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. Jayne published the first book on string figures in 1906 titled String Figures and How to Make Them. The book provided instructions on how to create 129 string figures that were identified by anthropologists studying traditional societies such as those in Congo-Kasai and the Caroline Islands." (Wikipedia). HBS 68709. $850. Seller Inventory # 68709

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