A Rarely-Seen Maurice Sendak Story Will Finally Hit Shelves Next Year

If Maurice Sendak had never done anything beyond Where the Wild Things Are, his 1963 ode to childhood imagination, he’d still be fondly remembered. But Sendak was an accomplished author and illustrator of varied works (In the Night Kitchen, Seven Little Monsters) that drew readers in with his unflinching look at some of the darker aspects of youth. And now, another Sendak story will be posthumously added to the canon—though it’s not entirely new.

According to Literary Hub, HarperCollins will be releasing Ten Little Rabbits: A Counting Story With Mino the Magician in February 2024. Sendak drew the tale—in which an illusionist uses rabbits to prompt a count-along—in black pen and first published it in 1970 as part of a fundraiser for the Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Sendak originally issued the story as a 32-page pamphlet measuring 3.5 inches by 2.5 inches for the museum, where he later became a trustee and where some of his original artworks were once stored. The HarperCollins version will be 7 inches by 9 inches and retail for $19.95.

This isn’t the first time Sendak’s work has been seen following his death in 2012. In 2018, HarperCollins released Presto and Zesto in Limboland, an unpublished manuscript Sendak wrote with Arthur Yorinks, which had been found among his papers.

[h/t Literary Hub]