Raggedy Ann is a rag doll with red yarn for hair and has a triangle nose. The stories describe a smart, kind, and generous rag doll who comes to life with other dolls when the owner is not in the nursery. Whenever a doll is on the floor in the morning, it is because it just didn't quite make it back to bed in time.
The Raggedy Ann character was created in 1915 as a doll, and was introduced to the public in the 1918 book Raggedy Ann Stories. When a doll was marketed with the book, the concept had great success. Over 75,000 handmade dolls were made by the Non-Breakable Toy Co. of Muskegon, Michigan between 1918 and 1926. The doll and the stories have been used for generations as a way to teach children virtues and values.
This cloth-bound book includes a Victorian inspired dust-jacket, and is limited to 100 copies.
Author Biography
Johnny Gruelle (December 24, 1880 - January 9, 1938) was an American artist, political cartoonist, children's book author and illustrator, and even songwriter. He is known as the creator of Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy. According to oft-repeated myth, Gruelle's daughter Marcella brought from her grandmother's attic a faceless doll on which the artist drew a face, and that Gruelle suggested that Marcella's grandmother sew a shoe button for a missing eye. He then combined the names of two James Whitcomb Riley poems, "The Raggedy Man" and "Little Orphant Annie" and suggested calling the doll Raggedy Ann. In reality, as Gruelle's wife Myrtle recalls, it was Gruelle who retrieved a long-forgotten, homemade rag doll from the attic of his parents' Indianapolis home sometime around the turn of the 20th century. As Myrtle explained, "There was something he wanted from the attic. While he was rummaging around for it, he found an old rag doll his mother had made for his sister. He said then that the doll would make a good story." The couple's daughter, Marcella, had not yet been born when Gruelle found the doll, Myrtle Gruelle continued. Johnny Gruelle "kept [the doll] in his mind until we had Marcella. He remembered it when he saw her play [with] dolls. ... He wrote the stories around some of the things she did. He used to get ideas from watching her." Additionally, Marcella died at age 13, and Gruelle did not then create the limp Raggedy Ann doll as a tribute to his lifeless daughter, as another myth states. Regardless, some journalistic sources repeat the myth.
