Along the Brook - 1931

 

You can view the copyright announcement here.  It's right next to The Greedy Goat!

"With drawings of fifty common plants and creatures, by Margery N Wilson"... who is, alas, lost to the internet.

The book was actually called Along the Brook, what you will find there and how to name it, and it has survived better than "Along the Shore." At least, it's on Amazon and Along the Shore is not.

According to this source, his full name was Raymond Tifft Fuller, he was born In 1889 and died in 1960. He wrote several books for young naturalists (you can read a review of one of the later ones here.)

 He also wrote a book about the passion play in Oberammergau (written in 1934, which was its 300th anniversary and the year the Nazis tried to take it over and turn it into some kind of Jew-hating "peasant festival" )You can read the book here. I skimmed parts of it and gathered that the beer in Munich is really, really, good and the play is NOT COMMERCIAL AT ALL,  M'KAY! Mr. Fuller had attended the 1930 version, but wrote this book before the 1934 play took place. The book appears to be more about urging people to visit Germany than it is about the play itself, specifically it's about how nice these German tourist bureau people are to give us such a good exchange rate.

Germany in 1934 was not poised to descend into the depths of evil. It had already descended. Dachau concentration camp had been open since 1933. Dachau is only about 65 miles from Oberammergau. The books where already burning. The Nazi party was the only legal party. Hitler was dictator of Germany. The Gestapo were open for business. Jews were no longer second class citizens, they were not citizens at all. They were boycotted, forbidden to own land or arms or run newspapers. They were steadily losing any rights they still possessed and it was getting worse. This was already in effect.

So, was Mr. Fuller evil? I doubt he was conscious enough for that. I think he had one of these:

...But that dosn't make me feel any better.