Published for the 1917 Christmas gift season, evidently October or November
Price $2.00 quoted in advertisements Vogue 50.11 (1917-12-01) p120 (mail order) and Chi. Tribune -12-16 pA8 ("The Fair", Chicago); here interpreted as publisher list price because the two retailers agree on what is rather high and a round number.
(Publisher advertisement not found 2017-12-09 in automated search of 1917 US newspapers.)
Four earlier various items in US newspapers -10-22 to -11-20 give no price. The earliest is a brief review, Courier-Journal (Louisville KY) -10-22 p6 "Delectable Juveniles", as the first of two "among the early [holiday season] arrivals at this desk".
-- "The illustrations include [12] full-page etchings in color and more than 100 reproductions in the style of old-fashioned wood cuts."
HathiTrust Digital Library provides full view of one copy with original cover
-- cover illustration signed "JOHN RAE"
-- illustrated endpapers
-- identically decorated title page and Foreword (Caldwell NJ, no date) incorporate cursive signature "John Rae" but those two, identically decorated Contents list and p[159] manuscript "To the Readers of this Book", and all illustrations, show the signature "JR"
-- copyright page: (c) 1917 by the publisher
-- story spans p11-157
Cover image from Amazon 2017-12-10 as "Board book – 1917"
