The simple Jaggajay

The Mite Merry Series. Melbourne : Whitcombe & Tombs, 1919. Quarto, illustrated card wrappers, cloth repair to spine, 30pp (mildly foxed), 3 tipped-in plates (2 colour, one monochrome), b/w line drawings, occasional foxing. Charming adventures of an imaginary bird, a gum-nut girl and their bush creature friends, in rhyming verse.

Harold Gaze was born in New Zealand and studied at art school in London during the First World War, after which he moved to Melbourne where he wrote and illustrated a number of books for children. He later returned to London, then settled in Pasadena, California in 1927 where he resided until his death. In California he worked with Disney and continued to publish. Many of the details of Gaze’s life have proven elusive to researchers, but his unique and creative children’s stories and imagery remain delightful and sought after today.