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SENDAK, Maurice Bernard (b.1928). A large scale original pencil sketch for the 1979 "New York is Book Country" promotional poster. [New York: June? 1979]. Pencil on paper (visible image area: 21 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches; 545 x 445mm.), with text "New York is Book Country" sketched in at the head, and below a giant Wild Thing (Moishe) sitting cross-legged, reading a book by the light from a shaded lamp shining from the top of the Empire State Building. The Wild Thing's elbow rests on an upper section of the building. Signed in pencil "Maurice Sendak" towards the lower right corner. Matted, framed and glazed. Provenance : acquired directly from the artist [ With :] A colored poster titled "New York is Book Country / September 16, 1979". [ New York]: printing and production courtesy of Viking Penguin, Inc., distribution courtesy of Harper & Row, publishers, Inc., 1979. Colored poster (24 x 19 inches; 610 x 480mm.), signed in blue ink to the right and just below the image, which depicts a gigantic Wild Thing (Moishe) sitting cross-legged, reading "Villettte" by Charlotte Brontë (by the light shed from the lamp-shaded top of the Empire State Building) whilst eating a Big Apple. The Wild Thing's elbow rests on an upper section of the building. Three King Kong-esque bi-planes circle above, their pilots hidden but apparently engrossed in a book resting open on the fusilage of each aircraft. Reproduced in Posters by Maurice Sendak (New York: Harmony Books/Crown, 1986), page 11. a unique original sketch for one of maurice sendak's most famous posters, featuring one of his most famous creations, and accompanied by an original of the published poster, signed in ink by the artist .The poster was printed in a run of no more than a few thousand copies which were distributed and sold only on the day of the first annual autumn festival of books on Fifth Avenue, on 16 September 1979. Maurice Sendak put in an appearance at the festival for only a short time during the day when he autographed a limited number of these posters. The preliminary drawing, besides being a great image, gives some hint as to alternatives that Mr. Sendak was considering: the Wild Thing holds the book that he is reading (rather than holding an apple) and the light at the top of the Empire State is present as both a lampshade and a directional light, more akin to the shade of an "Angle-poise" lamp. On a more fanciful level, the relative solidity of the Empire State Building versus the wispy unformed nature of Moishe (the Wild Thing), gives the drawing a different more dream-like quality, which the matter-of-fact finished poster does not have.