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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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): McLoughlin Bros. (c. 1859-1862). 24mo. (8)pp. Part of the Mother's Series, with hand-colored illustrations throughout. Rhyming verse about Henry Brown, the son of a carpenter who works hard and studies hard. His good character earns him success, and he is rewarded with a place in Congress and a beautiful... More
London: J. Harris, 1806. 32mo. (16)ff. First edition, Moon's fourth state with 1806 date on front wrapper, but with SMC initials on the earliest-state engraved dedication page. Illustrated with fifteen hand-colored copperplate engravings. According to Moon, this is the most significant children's book published by Harris, and surely one of... More
Windsor, VT: Ide, Simeon, 1829. 24mo. 62pp. With woodcut frontispiece, five tailpieces, additional woodcut illustrations to recto and verso of rear wrapper, and a page of alphabets in two different types. Contains rules for children's behavior and much on morals and religion. This is a later, truncated edition based on... More
NY: Tuffy Books, 1990. Octavo-sized Tuffy Tote Book with accompanying design templates and original artwork. Book is (12)pp. These items demonstrate the design process for children's board books, with particular attention in the templates to text layout, branding, and die-cuts that enhance illustrations on either side of a page. The... More
Boston: David R. Godine, (1981). Oblong quarto. 29pp. First edition. Inscribed on the title-page by the author/artist: "Merry Christmas from Ilse Plume & the Spirit of Befana!!" With fourteen full-page color plates. This is Plume's second published work; her first book received the Caldecott Honor in 1981. Minor edgewear and... More
N.p. C.D.L.R., 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 of a small... More
Waikiki (Honolulu): Fisher Corporation, 1946. Quarto. (126)pp. Illustrated with twenty-nine color plates by Marcel Cailliet, which richly depict different aspects of a Hawai'ian luau. Images of the food, dancing, music, and people together evoke the joy and excitement of a traditional luau. Each illustration is preceded by a transparent guard... More
New York: Mahlon Day, 1832. 16mo. 18pp. (inside wrappers included in pagination.) 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... More
NY: Simon & Schuster, 1957. Quarto. (64)pp. First edition. A children's favorite, which chronicles the kinetic Eloise's adventures in Paris. Fine in decorated red boards, small bump to bottom corner. Dust jacket shows light edgewear and split starting to head of spine, else fine. More
N.p. n.d. Small quarto. (ii), 36pp. This is a unique pre-production edition of Mary E. Williamson's children's book, which seems to never have been published. The text is handwritten in black ink, and the illustrations are hand-drawn and colored with ink and paint, all on boards. The story follows an... More
Frankfurt A.M. Bertele, Bilder, Buecher, (c. 1925). Quarto. (26)pp. First edition. Written and illustrated with thirteen fantastic, chromolithographed plates by Kleyer, who studied under the expressionist painter and printmaker Ludwig Meidner. Kleyer’s text, which is a series of rhyming couplets printed on facing pages, concerns a family visit to a.... More
Bristol: Lilliput Press, (1996). (37)pp. One of 150 copies, signed by the binder Tim Sheppard. The Silver Penny ABC was originally printed as a chapbook in 1818 and is reproduced here with "Of the Fatal Effects of Bad Education" and "The Moral" following the ABC. Illustrated with engravings, some of... More
(Bristol): Lilliput Press, 1986. (25)ff. One of 55 copies indicated as the first edition, signed and numbered by the illustrator, A. Clements. An accordionfold panorama about the language of flowers, linking each flower to an emotional state or its social interpretation. "A" is for allspice, which is associated with compassion... More
Paris: La Renaissance du Livre, 1922. Oblong quarto. (13)ff., interleaved with twelve pochoir plates. First edition. A poignant fable about the escapades of a magpie—whose body is made of a pinecone—and three little pinecone chicks as they leave the mantel of the fireplace on which they live to venture out... More
Paris: Delarue, (c. 1820). 12mo. 90pp. With frontispiece and forty illustrations from engravings. Contains detailed explanations for performing a variety of magic tricks, including passing a ring through a stick, number divination, the “oeuf dansant,” and many others. Only three copies recorded in institutions, two of which are in the... More
(England): 1849. Octavo. 5ff. Verse manuscript with original watercolor illustrations, including a full-page cover title and title-page and sixteen vignettes throughout. The text tells the tale of Timothy Brown, who is introduced as "a wild little lad" who constantly tears his clothes and searches for ways to spend his days... More
NY: McLoughlin Bros. (1900). Quarto. (14)pp. A colorfully illustrated alphabet, "mounted on linen." For each letter, costumed young boys and girls play soldiers, acting out military roles from buglers to nurses to generals. Some of the children represent soldiers from different countries, including a Highlander in a kilt, a French... More
London: Vincent Brooks, Day & Son, (1891). Small quarto. 64pp. First edition. With photo-etched illustrations in black & white throughout by Mrs. E. M. Boyd, Mr. R. André, and by the poet, Louisa A. Meredith. Although born in Birmingham, England, Meredith moved to New South Wales, and then Tasmania, after... More
London: Methuen, (1926). First edition. One of 200 copies printed on hand-made paper, signed by Milne and Shepard. Milne's whimsical and beloved poems of his son, Christophe Robin and his bear, Pooh, accompanied by Shepard's familiar illustrations. Bound in quarter cloth with orange paper over boards and paper label. Second... More
London: Methuen, 1926. First edition. Limited to 350 copies printed on handmade paper and signed by Milne and Shepard. With all of the well-known and well-loved illustrations and a fold-out map of Pooh's and Christopher Robin's territory, which appeared in the ordinary edition as endpapers. Bound in quarter dark-blue cloth... More
London: Methuen, (1927). First edition. This famous collection of children’s verses, featuring Milne’s son, Christopher Robin, and his bear, is illustrated throughout with Ernest H. Shepard’s whimsical drawings. Signed at a later date on the title page by Shepard. Handsomely bound by Bayntun-Rivière in deep red morocco, with gilt ruled... More
NY: John H. Eggers, 1917. Eight volumes, 12pp. each (wrappers not included). Replete with illustrations using an orange and green color palette, the set consists of "The Chocolate Man," "Old Mother Hubbard," "The Gorgon's Head," "Child's Garden of Verse," "Ali Baba," "East of the Sun and West of the Moon,"... More
Buffalo, NY: Breed, Butler & Co., 1863. 61pp. From the second of six sets of miniature books for children published by Breed, Butler, and Co. in the 1860s. Each set, smaller than the last, comprises six volumes bound in colorful embossed and gilt-stamped cloth. The stories are all written by... More
Buffalo, NY: Breed, Butler & Co., 1863. 61pp. A grandmother tells her grandson the story of a vain little girl in order to comfort him after an accident. Bound in gilt-decorated purple cloth. Covers faded and slightly rubbed, else a fine copy. A.e.g. With the signature of a youthful owner... More
