Oblong quarto, 62 pp., with publisher's dust jacket. Elmer Boyd Smith (1860-1943) studied art in Paris for several years before moving to the US. A prolific writer and illustrator (over seventy books) his work ranged from "the muted, mystery-laden palette and epic vision of French muralist Pierre Puvis de Chavannes to the dashing graphic shorthand of poster artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec" (n.b., quote from the web site of the Brooklyn Public Library). This colourful picture book, with sixteen full-page colour illustrations and twenty-nine in black-and-white, show the circus as we all would want it to be: animals having fun with the circus performers, delighting and amazing the audiences. Somewhat uncommon in the online marketplace with the dust jacket. ___DESCRIPTION: Pictorial boards with a blue cloth shelfback, pictorial endpapers, the colour frontispiece one of the sixteen bound in throughout; oblong quarto (11" wide by 8 5/8" tall), irregularly paginated with 62 total pages (coun