Most people, when asked about their favorite book, will invariably include a book they read as a child. Hemingway famously proclaimed that "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn". Twain's book, like its predecessor, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, were books whose intended audience was young readers. Such books speak to us on multiple levels. As literature, they are well-crafted and clever with memorable characters and conflicts, but they matter to us for more than these reasons because we discovered them at a formative period of our lives. Their ideas helped to form our own, and so they are more personal ...
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London: J. Bysh, (n.d.). Octavo. 8pp. Thirteen hand-colored engravings, to accompany thirteen of fourteen moral tales. The tales, which include "The Ploughman and Fortune" and "The Hares and the Frogs", are each followed by a direct statement of the moral they exemplify. They are presented in an unusual two-column format... More
New Haven: Sidney Babcock, (c. 1840). 64mo. 16pp. A near-miniature chapbook illustrated with nine woodcuts, including a frontispiece of Emma, the older sister, giving her baby sister Caroline a flower, and a title-page vignette of girls jumping rope. A tale about learning to share and being patient and kind to... More
Portland, ME: Bailey & Noyes. 32mo. 16pp. Illustrated with woodcuts. A volume filled with short lyrical hymns aimed at simplifying and presenting moral lessons to children. The woodcuts emphasize this point of childhood learning; the largest of them, which occupies a full page, depicts a boy and girl sitting and... More
York: J. Kendrew, (c. 1820). 48mo. A collection of verses for children, illustrated throughout with woodcut vignettes on nearly every page, and a large cut of a preacher at his pulpit to the rear cover. Slight split starting to spine, else near fine in white printed wrappers. (Davis 42; Gumuchian 1577-1579). More
Philadelphia: Kimber and Conrad, (c. 1812). 24mo. (24)pp., partially unopened. Illustrated with twenty-two half-page wood engravings, each with a simple sentence underneath related to the image; also included is a full-page engraving on the title page. The woodcuts are all collected from other books. On the back of the title... More
NY: Kiggins & Kellogg. 64mo. 8pp. Illustrated with six woodcuts, plus a title-page vignette. The images are highly detailed for their small size—a ship at sea buffetted by rolling waves under thick clouds, and a fish at the end of a fishing line with an entire landscape scene behind it... More
New Haven: Babcock, Sidney, (1841). 24mo. 24pp. Illustrated with eight full-page wood engravings of animals, including lions, a tiger, and a bear, as well as a title-page vignette of a horse. Each illustration is accompanied by tales of encounters with these animals and sensational stories. Bound in illustrated yellow wrappers... More
New Haven: Babcock, Sidney, (c. 1840). 24mo. 24pp. A chapbook illustrated throughout with a title-page vignette, a full-page frontispiece depicting two girls who have put aside their playthings in order to read with their teacher, and five additional full-page wood engravings illustrating the rhymes. These nursery rhymes provide lessons about... More
NY: Kiggins & Kellogg, (c. 1850). 48mo. Illustrated throughout with full-page black & white engravings and smaller vignettes. This near-miniature chapbook contains a tale about American colonization and independence, told to a young audience in order to explain the significance of the July 4th holiday. Fine in printed buff wrappers. More
Charlestown, MA: Hobbs, George W. (1850). 64mo. (32)pp. Hand-colored vignettes at top of each page, along with two full-page frontispieces and two interior titles. The stated title has been taken from the upper board, but the text itself is divided into two separate stories: The Little Reward and The Little... More
London: W. Belch, (c. 1820). 16mo. (8)ff. Eight hand-colored, half-page illustrations. Underneath each vibrant image are six rhyming lines of text, which together tell the moral tale of Peter Brown, who failed to heed his mother's warnings and drowned in a pond as a result. The printer Belch issued a.... More
New Haven: Babcock, Sidney, (1841). 24mo. 24pp. Illustrated throughout with engraved vignettes and a full-page frontispiece of a mother reading with her two children. Mrs. Barbauld's famous prose hymns have been reinterpreted in verse form here by Mary Belson. Part of Babcock's "Moral, Instructive and Amusing Toy Books" series. Some... More
New Haven: Babcock, Sidney, 1834. 24mo. 36pp. A chapbook illustrated with thirteen wood engravings, including a full-page frontispiece of a mother reading with two children and a title-page vignette. A collection of Mrs. Barbauld's hymns interpreted in prose form. Barbauld was a poet and the author of several children's books... More
Troy, NY: Merriam & Moore, n.d. 24mo. 12pp. Replete with engravings, including two on the verso of the title-page. This story has been derived from Maria Edgeworth's "Frank", a collection of children's moral tales each involving the idyllic titular child. The one presented here describes Frank's eagerness to help others... More
Cooperstown: H. and E. Phinney, 1834. 24mo. 31pp. The first Phinney edition of this familiar tale. With ten woodcuts, very neat indeed, and three more on the yellow wrappers. Previous young owners' names to front wrapper, wear to extremities, and some foxing to interior, else a near fine copy. More
NY: McLoughlin Bros, (c. 1873). (12)pp. A chapbook of moral songs by Isaac Watts, illustrated with four color engravings. Part of a series of "Illuminated texts for Sunday school rewards" published by McLoughlin Brothers. Minor internal soiling, previous owner's stamp to inside rear wrapper, which has offset onto last page... More
Paris: Flammarion, 1931. Small quarto. (24)pp., + (10)ff. First edition. Features eleven full-page illustrations showing natural and household scenes as sample collage compositions, along with glossy decoupage paper in five colors for children to create the scenes for themselves. This activity book for children was one of two published by... More
Melbourne: Sign of the Rabbit, 1905. Small quarto. (32)pp. Extremely rare first edition. Illustrated with sixteen woodcut illustrations in the Japanese style, six of which are double-page spreads. All but four minor illustrations are hand-initialed in ink by the contributing artist. Set opposite the illustrations, the letterpress-printed verse is a.... More
Florence: Felice Paggi, 1883. Small octavo. 236pp., + iipp. of advertisements. First edition. The enduring children’s classic about a mischievous marionette whose nose grows every time he tells a lie, in the original Italian and wonderfully illustrated with a full-page frontispiece of the titular character, as well as sixty-one additional... More
(Paris: Plon, 1963). Spiral folio. 48 ff. With a Preface by Jean Cocteau. Color illustrations by the author. A bright and colorful cookbook for children with French text. Recipes include soups, hors-d'oeuvres, meat and poultry, sauces, vegetables, eggs and fish, and desserts. Some wear to front and back covers, spiral... More
London: 1929; 1975. Bifolium. 4pp. Offprint from a children's annual containing original text and illustrations by Cox printed in two colors. Above the final illustration, Cox's name appears as "Mauris Cox." A story about a lazy boy who is cast out of his house by his mother; then, with the... More
Paris: Nouvelle Librairie de la Jeunesse, (1890). Small quarto. (14)pp., including paste-down endpapers. A stencil-colored cut-figure book, with each page cut into three sections so that one can make numerous combinations of the head, body, and legs of "Mon Oncle Gaspard." The Gaspards range in profession and character, from a.... More
(Harmondsworth, Middlesex): Penguin, (1946). Small octavo. Single page of text, followed by twelve leaves cut horizontally into three sections. First edition. Cut-figure book illustrated by Richard Chopping, who is perhaps best-known for designing the dust wrappers of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. A brief narrative introduces the reason for these... More
(Akron, OH): John Davey, 1905. Octavo. 165pp. Inscribed by the author to Richard Mickey and dated October 14th, 1916. The inscription reads, "From every tree and plant & flower / We learn of Wisdom, skill & power, / And from the starry host above / We hear the voice that... More
London: Dean and Son / W. Kent & Co. (c. 1860). Octavo. Three volumes in one. (24); 30; (32)pp. A collection of three illustrated children's books published together by Dean and Son under the name Dean's Coloured Picture Book: The Home First Book. The titles herein are "The Nursery ABC... More
