Although, Thornton Burgess first book, The Bride's Primer (1905) landed in obscurity. His second, Old Mother West Wind (1910) began a successful series that not only outlasted publishers and illustrators, but also spanned decades with the collaboration of Harrison Cody. Today, with publishers, agents and children's writing sites strongly discouraging talking animals, Thornton Burgess and Harrison Cody are enjoying a strong revival as a result of the Gutenberg Project making people aware of valuable old books discarded years ago. With an upsurge of academic interest in fairytales, Victorian and Edwardian children's books are in demand with a large growth in the reprint and ebook industry. Scarcely on the internet a year ago, Thornton Burgess brought up over 4000hits with large collections of titles now available.
The majority of his titles were printed with Little, Brown & Co (LB &co), beginning in 1910 and running until 1950,publishing his autobiography in 1960, Now I remember, Autobiography of an Amateur Naturalist. With such a prodigious publishing record, Burgess outran illustrators and publishers while maintaining a close collaboration with Harrison Cody throughout his life with titles appearing in LB & Co (1912-1950); Eggers (1912-1928); Whitman (1927-1930, having many undated titles); and Platt & Munk (1940-1942) and Grosset & Dunlap.Obviously in turning out 18 books in 1914, Harrison Cady was swamped with work and Eggers obliged their anonymous illustrator to do the overflow. And although, Cady is immediately recognized for his collaboration with Burgess, the source title, Old Mother West Wind was illustrated by George Kerr.
Old Mother West Wind http://www.boop.org/jan/omww/ full text with illustrations by George Kerr Grosset& Dunlap
George Kerr illustrated four titles of the Mother West Wind series—Old Mother West Wind (1910); Mother West Wind's Children (1911); Mother West Wind's Animal Friends (1912) and Mother West Wind's Neighbor's (1913).
In 1912, Harrison Cody began his collaboration with Burgess, presenting Baby Possum Has a Scare and Baby Possum's Queer Voyage, and introduced Grandfather Frog in Grandfather Frog Gets a Ride. In 1913, Burgess brought out a handful of titles, including the Boy Scout titles with C.C.Corson as illustrator, and Leon Wolf with Little Animal Stories for little Children issued from John Martin's House, but by 1914 Harrison Cady was the chief illustrator with the shadowy ghosts taking up the overflow titles at Eggers and LB & co.
