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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NY: Mahlon Day, 1836. 32mo. 32pp. Eight full-page engravings and title device, all depicting birds and bird-related activities, included the woodpecker, the flamingo, and the grebe. The accompanying stories are all educational, informing the reader of the given bird's habitat, behaviors, appearance, and occasionally its uses for humans. The exposition..... More
London: Dean & Son, (c. 1860). 32mo. 8pp. Engravings of bucolic English scenes adorn the prose tale of the pious Dutch farmer and his influence on British soldiers, and the following poem entitled "The Seed and the Prayer". Very rare, with no physical institutional holdings, and even rarer for its..... More
Boston: Taggard & Thompson, 1858. 16mo. 31pp. Nine full-page color engravings, illustrating key scene's in the titular fox's antics in his journey to find food for his family. He finds a farm, confounds the animals, and captures a goose, only to again resort to his cunning ways to escape the..... More
Boston: Mayhew & Baker, 1858. Square octavo. (32)pp., including wrappers. One of the Fireside Picture Books. Illustrated with nine large engravings and two smaller vignettes by "Morte". Each illustration is accompanied by one of the nine verses from the Mother Goose nursery rhyme, "There was a Little Man, and he..... More
New Haven: J. Babcock, 1822. 16mo. 32 pp. Illustrated with eight plates, each bearing two engravings by Alexander Anderson. This is the first part of an abridged version of Hundred Wonders of the World, also published by Babcock, and for which an advertisement appears on the title-page verso. The text..... More
Troy, NY: Merriam & Moore, (1851). 24mo. 12pp. Illustrated with wood engravings throughout, six of which are by Alexander Anderson. An installment in Edgeworth's series of stories about Frank, a naive, occasionally mischievous boy, who learns with each episode a new moral. Here, Frank encounters his bereaved cousin, and comes..... More
London: Religious Tract Society, (c. 1865). Small quarto. 6pp., + 6 colored plates interleaved. This instructional volume parses the alphabet into six sets of four, with each head quartet accompanied by a short tale employing the four letters. Each text page also bears a border of four Biblical verses, so..... More
(France): Ceux de la Résistance, 1944. Folio. (57)pp. A children's picture book that follows two demons who escape Hell, help a battalion of French Forces of the Interior (F.F.I.), and make trouble for the Nazis. Eventually the demons and their companion, a small flame, assist the F.F.I. in the liberation..... More
Boston: Carter, Hendee, and Co., 1833. 24mo. viii, 138pp. With nine engravings depicting Washington at various moral and heroic high points, such as his decision to tell the truth to his father despite potential consequences, his survival of falling off a raft into icy water, and his now-famous stance by..... More
London: Darton, 1811. 32mo. 16pp., + 16 inserted plates. Each engraved image depicts the titular good boy engaged in less desirable activities, such as throwing stones, feeding scraps to the family pet, and drawing on the walls. Each is accompanied by a pithy couplet drawn from the soliloquy. The author..... More
London: J. & J. Wood, c. 1845. Octavo. (8)pp. (first and last text pages glued to wrapper). With cover illustration and two frontispiece engravings by W.D. Hornsby. This primer was issued as part of Wood's Juvenile Library, and contains two pages of alphabets and numbers, followed by 26 short lessons..... 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
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
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
Rochester, NY: Stecher Lith. Co., 1916. Folio. (12)pp. This vibrant children's book, illustrated with twelve full-color, full-page plates, narrates the early years of George Washington's life in verse. His childhood deeds, including learning to ride a horse at age ten, chopping down his father's cherry tree, and setting out as..... More
NY: E. M. Leavens Co., 1918. Quarto. (12)pp. Bold, colorful illustrations of the American West, including American Indians, cowboys, stage coaches, and frontier cabins, accompany explanatory text, printed in blue, red, and brown. Bound in color printed wrappers. Some bumping to corners, tiny tear at bottom of rear cover, else..... More
Cincinnati: U. P. James, (c. 1860). 24mo. 31pp. Illustrated throughout with stock wood engravings to accompany alphabets, vocabulary lists, grammar lessons, and short poems and moral stories. Crisply printed and, save expected minor soiling to exterior, remarkably clean in blue wrappers. Fine. More
Chicago: Wilcox & Follett, 1945. Oblong 24mo. (8)pp., accordionfold. Each page richly illustrated in color with scenes of firemen patrolling the streets, operating safety equipment, and caring for civilians in a variety of locales, including cities, plains, and ships. A charming historical look into the operation of fire safety. Bound..... More
London (but Hertfordshire): John Marshall (but Anne and Peter Stockham), 1801 (but 1976). One of forty-eight copies. In this "cabinet," there are two miniature books and a collection of twenty-eight hand-colored engravings of the objects listed in the books. The books are bound in full leather, one maroon and one..... More
Reading: Smart and Cowslade, 1792. First edition. The Preface notes that this series of versified history lessons is adapted from the Chronological and Historical Game of England, published by Dudley Adams. Once a young scholar has absorbed the mnemonic verse describing the monarch and his rule, they must then perform..... More
NY: Oxford University Press, 1947. Octavo. 118pp. Inscribed by Tudor on the second free flyleaf. Illustrated throughout in color and black-and-white by Tudor, with her signature floral wreaths, dreamy landscapes, and playful children. Bound in green cloth over boards with paper label to upper cover. Freckles of foxing throughout, though..... More
Madrid: (c. 1860). 122pp., + six plates. The Catholic mass is here reduced to its essential points, understandable to children. The plates illustrate familiar scenes, such as the Ascension, the Crucifixion, and the woman at the well. In red morocco wallet--style binding decorated with gilt, including a splendid image of..... More
Mainz: Jos. Scholz, (c. 1890). Four stand-up scenes with forty-five die-cut paper figures, which can be used to stage the fairy tale of Snow White. The pieces include thirteen two-sided figures for our major players, including Snow White, the Seven Dwarves, Prince Charming, and the Evil Queen; six additional one-sided..... More
Esslingen: J. F. Schreiber, 1920. An unusual unused booklet with "magic leaves," which reveal a picture when lightly passed over with a pencil. For obvious reasons, it is especially rare to find such as this with a clean interior. Oblong 32mo. (8)ff. Bound in pictorial wrappers featuring an old-fashioned horse..... 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
