Author:  Illustrated by Ida Bohatta Morpurgo. English version by June Head.
Title: The Gnome’s Almanack.
Publisher: Munich, Ars Sacra / Joseph Mueller, 1931. Printed in Germany. First English Edition.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 6 x 4.5 inches.
Pages: Unpaginated.
Binding: Very good original publisher’s brown paper-covered boards with a mounted full-colour pictorial onlay depicting Father Gnome walking with a bee and a grasshopper, framed in green with matching green titling (“THE GNOME’S ALMANACK”) (hinges fine, overall slightly worn and scuffed - as shown,  light wear to extremities, minor rubbing to corners, and a touch of softening at spine tips, the rear board clean and plain - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover. Binding tight, sound, and well preserved for this fragile pre-war production.
Content: Very good content (bright, tight and clean, pages clean, bright, and crisp with only light age-toning and an occasional small spot of foxing as shown - as shown). Early neat gift inscription to the front free endpaper (“Jane Tucker. Dec. 25 1940.”). A small early Salem bookshop label affixed to lower title-page. No tears, no repairs, no child’s colouring. A remarkably clean copy of a title that often survives in worn condition.
Illustrations: Complete with the full suite of twelve exquisite full-page colour plates by Ida Bohatta Morpurgo, each signed with her “IBM” monogram and facing a page of verse corresponding to the months of the year. Bohatta’s soft, pastel palette and whimsical gnomes, animals, and garden settings perfectly embody her signature Central-European style and remain vivid and unfaded in this copy.

Estimate: (USD 250–300).

The book: The Gnome’s Almanack is a delightful miniature seasonal cycle, following a kindly gnome through the twelve months as he tends his garden, bargains with mice at harvest time, scolds a careless mole, welcomes birds in winter, and discovers a Christmas gift beneath the snow. Each month pairs a charming full-colour illustration by Ida Bohatta with a short, playful verse.

Originally produced by Ars Sacra in Munich, this English version—adapted by June Head—brought Bohatta’s beloved gnome universe to English-speaking children in the early 1930s. Surviving copies in attractive condition are increasingly uncommon due to the fragile paper-over-board binding and the book’s small format, which encouraged frequent handling. This copy is unusually clean and complete, preserving the charm and freshness of the original production.

The illustrator:  Ida Bohatta Morpurgo (1900–1992) was one of the most cherished Austrian children's illustrators of the interwar period. Trained in Vienna, she became closely associated with Ars Sacra, for whom she produced a long series of miniature books and postcards that are highly collectible today.

Her work is instantly recognizable: rounded figures with expressive faces, soft and harmonious colour palettes, and a distinctly Central-European folk sensibility. She excelled in capturing the intimacy of small worlds—tree roots, gardens, forest corners—and populating them with gnomes, mice, birds, and insects endowed with tender personality and humour.

Her illustrations for The Gnome’s Almanack are among her most endearing creations, offering a complete year in miniature, each month brought to life with warmth, imagination, and decorative charm.