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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Portland, ME: Bailey & Noyes. 32mo. 16pp. Illustrated with woodcuts throughout. 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 a girl...
(N.p. c. 1850). 24mo. (8)pp. Illustrated in black & white throughout. The intrigue of this booklet originates from its likely pirated content. The engravings are eclectic—an image of a rabbit is accompanied by the British royal seal and the seal of the Ancient Order of Foresters—and poorly printed. Also included.....
Concord (NH): John F. Brown, 1837. 64mo. 16pp. Engravings throughout. Descriptions, with both moral and functional value, of various objects, including a windmill, a cannon, a tent, and a barge. In printed pale orange paper wrappers. Foxed, else near fine and very scarce. Signature of former owner on title page.
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).
NY: J. P. Dinsmore, (c. 1870). 32mo. (8); (8)pp. Two pamphlets bound tete-beche and with separate publication statements. New Rhymes bears Dinsmore's imprint, while Songs for the Little Ones was printed by Seth W. Fowle & Sons in Boston. Both pamphlets are of similar structures, with poems framed by advertisements...
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 buffeted by rolling waves under thick clouds, and a fish at the end of a fishing line with an entire landscape scene behind it.....
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...
Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union, 1827. 48mo. 16pp. Engraved frontispiece and title page, as well as several devices in text. A moral tale told through the nature of snow-drop flowers, the lesson providing greater resolve in Christ's provision and righteousness. The final two pages rephrase the lesson into a poem...
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...
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.
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...
Wendell, MA: J. Metcalf, 1828. 16mo. 16pp. Illustrated with numerous woodcut vignettes. The text consists of two stories: that of William and Ellen, who are made to suffer a number of unfortunate mishaps as a result of the handiwork of a naughty boy, who gets his comeuppance in the end;...
Otley, UK: William Walker, (c. 1830). 24mo. (32)pp. Twenty-eight hand-colored engravings of a variety of animals, ranging from a wolf to a peacock to an ass. In addition to its own illustration, each animal receives a full page of text describing its habitats, eating habits, and uses for humans. In...
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...
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...
Troy, NY: Merriam & Moore, (c. 1830). 24mo. 12pp. Replete with engravings, including two on the verso of the title page. This story was 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...
NY: Lane & Scott, (c. 1845). 32mo. 8pp. Two half-page engravings. Published by Lane & Scott for the Sunday School Union of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The story follows a young boy's observation of a caterpillar (the "woolly bear") and the moral and spiritual lessons he learns from the encounter...
New York: Mahlon Day, 1832. 16mo. 18pp., including inside wrappers. Illustrated with frontispiece, title-page and two smaller vignettes, and ten half-page figures, all wood engravings. Contains the title poem, as well as "The Cradle Hymn," "Winter Evening's Amusement," and ends with "The Duties of Children." This edition also carries a....
Birmingham: C. Caswell, (c. 1870). (16)pp. Engraved frontispiece. A moral tale on the ills of covetousness and theft, and the corresponding rights of honesty and confession. Bound in yellow paper wrappers. Untitled hymn (first line: "Among the deepest shades of night") appears on lower cover. Scant foxing and creasing to...
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.
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...
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...
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...
(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...
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...
