This lovely illustration of a little girl admiring a group of dolls
including two Japanese dolls is on the cover of two different books. It
is one of five color plates (along with a large number of line drawings)
by Grace Evans, originally created in 1908 for a book by Louise Fanshawe
Gregory: Mama Nelly & I: The Story of a Thinking Doll.
This was a "chapter book" narrated by a doll, Chrissy, about her life
with the little girl Nelly in ---. Her adventures include almost "drowning,"
a stay with an organ-grinder and his monkey, joining a doll family, and
winning a prize in a doll show, all of which are illustrated with color
plates; the plate above shows the doll show and faces page 82.
Six years later, in 1914, the illustrations were re-used for a new
story, The Adventures of a Happy Dolly by Mary Dickerson Donahey.
The title page of this book simply says "illustrated" without mentioning
the artist; it uses all the color plates and some of the black and white
vignettes. The format is similar, with the doll Rosalie telling how she
came to be owned by Peggy. About half the book is taken up with adventures
in Florida, including a snake and alligator "farm," a bear hunt, and a
visit with a Russian princess who lives in a tower in an orange grove.
Of course some chapters have to be adapted to fit the color plates (e.g.
the organ grinder), while other adventures have little or no illustration.
The picture above is adapted by Donahey to the first chapter (it is
used as the frontispiece as well as on the cover), in which Peggy sees
Rosalie in the "tourist shop" and chooses her. It is a bit confusing since
we are told the display is in a window to attract passersby, but in the
illustration (and also in the story) Peggy is standing right in front of
the doll display. Donahey wrote quite a role for the Japanese boy doll
depicted in the illustration. For the text accompanying the illustration,
click
Happy Dolly