Please note that this is a sixth printing and priced accordingly. The cover boards are slightly faded along the top edge. The dust jacket is price-clipped and shows minor shelf wear. Visit for more first edition children's books.Ĭondition*: Very Good/Good. Next time you're in England you may want to look for at least one of his fabulous clocks on display at these locations: Regent Arcade shopping center, Cheltenham Telford Shopping Center Central Milton Keynes Shopping Center. Kit Williams also wrote The Bee On The Comb, Pebbles From The Brook, Bobbing For Apples. News stories at the time reported people digging holes in yards across Great Britain in search of the bejeweled hare. In the story, the Moon enlists Jack Hare to deliver the jewel as a gift to her beloved, the Sun, but Jack looses it on the journey. Kit Williams was shocked when his beautiful and beguiling picture book set off a nationwide treasure hunt for the 'the Jewel of Masquerade', a golden hare inset with semi-precious stones. Next, with a little gold taken from the dawn sky, she cunningly wrought a splendrous jewel that was the perfect mirror of her love.'

To this end.she plucked from the sea of clouds a most brilliant rose-coloured moonstone. On this night the lady of the pale complexion resolved to make herself known to the Sun by sending him a token of her affection. The thing he wished for most was a friend. The Sun, for his part, and contrary to his appearance, was always sad. Although all happiness was in her dance, there was also a little sadness, for whenever the dance led her into the same part of the sky as the sun, she seemed to simply fade away, and feared the Sun might never notice her. This lady, whom all mortals call the Moon, danced a merry dance in the pathless sky, for she had fallen in love, and the object of her devotion was the Sun.

The tresses of her hair reached out to make the constellations, and the dewy vapors of her gown fell soft upon the land. 'Once upon a perfect night, unclouded and still, there came the face of a pale and beautiful lady.

Only a wonderful story, and beautiful artwork, could send thousands of children and adults chasing rabbits across the county, a chase that went on for two years and helped sell over a million books. This is a sixth printing but I want to make it easy for someone to find this fun, imaginative treasure. Masquerade is one of my favorite children's books and I snatch it up whenever I find one. 1981, stated first American edition, sixth printing. Masquerade, first published in the UK in 1979, was a nationwide phenom that set off a treasure hunt for the jeweled hare author Kit Williams buried to delight his young readers.

Golden hare masquerade