As far as I know, there is no print available. However, just obtain the original book, which is very large format, open to the Babar's Dream double-page spread and frame it in a frame with a thick mat making a thin box to hold the thin book. A good framer can do this. (Or you can remove and frame the double-page spread itself.)

The edition you want is Jean de Brunhoff, Le Roi Babar (Paris, 1933). Get this edition (Paris 1933) only. There are about 10 for sale now on bookfinder ranging between $250 and $1000 depending (partly at least) on condition.

And there is of course the English translation by Laurent de Brunhoff (son of Jean) and Phyllis Rose done for my book Visual Explanations at page 127.

-- Edward Tufte

I bought the English translation and had a framer do as ET suggested and remove the two-page image of Babar's Dream and frame it. It worked fine, although the shades of orange in the background of the left and right sides of the images were different, creating an obvious color boundary down the middle of the framed result. But I display it proudly anyway.

-- John Barry (email)

How good to see this thread, started in 2001, have consequences in 2007.

The board is designed to try to reduce the conventional and strong recency bias of internet boards. (After all, here most of the material from 2001 is just as relevant as the material from 2007.) The design is quite flat so that threads, even from years ago, do not get buried in deep hierarchical archive stacks. This sometimes produces some local inconveniences, which are now and then fully offset by the happy history of the Babar thread.

-- Edward Tufte

Perhaps Babar is in the midst of a resurgence, for I, too, just stumbled upon this thread while searching the net for a framed poster of "Babar's Dream."

After reconnecting with the image while thumbing through Tufte's book recently, I purchased the series for my girlfriend who works with children, but somehow lacked prior knowledge of Babar.

Now we enjoy the books together, and thanks to this suggestion will soon make our own copy of "Babar's Dream" on the wall without spending more time searching the net for a mass-produced version.

Thanks, Tufte!

Angus

-- Angus Jennings (email)

Be sure to check out this week’s New Yorker for an article on Babar.

There’s also a slide show and several other links.

-- Jon Gross (email)

You can find this book http://www.bookase.com, A price comparison engine for books

-- Amit Sehgal (email)

I might suggest that the framing of books is something that we might consider more often.

A while ago, I acquired, for a song, an exhibition catalog for one of the first (if not the first) US exhibitions for Lyonel Feininger. The frontspiece was an image from the show that appeared to have been printed using one of Feininger's woodcut blocks.

I wanted to frame it, so that I and others might admire it more than we would if it were just sitting on a shelf. I briefly considered extricating it from the catalog. (Really. Stop looking at me like that. I didn't actually follow through.) Then, someone suggested that I frame the whole thing. It required a rather large mat to fit the catalog, but preserves both the book and the work of art.

-- Christopher Busta-Peck (email)