Day-Dawn. New York: American Tract Society, [ca. 1860] Devotional books containing brief Bible passages for daily reading were frequently printed in two-inch miniature format so as to easily fit in a pocket. The American Tract Society was a major 19th-century publisher of these pocket devotionals. This title is new to AAS, and features a splendid gilt ...
The Comical Boys. Philadelphia: J.B. Keller, [ca. 1852] John B. Keller, like his New York counterparts Philip J. Cozans and Elton & Co., specialized in publishing cheap picture books with brashly hand-colored wood engravings. Comical Boys chronicles the misadventures of boys, as in the case of poor Christopher Crow, who ran into a pump handle. The ...
This haunting lithograph depicting Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Match-Girl is taken from the rare collection of Hans Andersen’s stories, Good Wishes for the Children, interpreted by A.A.B. and S.G.P., published by the famed Riverside Press in 1873. AAS acquired its copy from the illustrious bookman Benjamin Tighe in 1967, and up until now, the ...
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. Lessons for Children, from Two to Three Years Old. Boston: S. Hall, 1800. This is an unrecorded title, drawn from English writer Anna Letitia Barbauld’s series of Lessons for Children written for youngsters between the ages of two and six. They are written as a series of dialogs between a child (frequently a ...
The History and Adventures of Little Eliza. Philadelphia: William Charles, 1811. This imprint is among the earliest American editions of a book first printed in London accompanied by a set of paper dolls. The celebrated Philadelphia engraver and publisher William Charles integrated the images with the text as a picture book, complete with his subtle background ...
The quagga illustrated in this children's book caught my eye because, possibly like you, dear reader, I had never heard of this animal. And so I went to Wikipedia where I read an interesting article about the quagga's relationship to the plains zebra and about efforts to breed them back into existence. Curator of Children's ...
Henry Box Brown (b. 1816) escaped lifelong slavery in Virginia by shipping himself in a box (with the help of white and African-American abolitionists) to Philadelphia in 1849. One of the few primary sources detailing his breathtaking escape to freedom is the children’s book Cousin Ann’s Stories for Children. Written in 1849 by Quaker abolitionist ...
If the holiday leftovers are still lurking in our refrigerators, we figure there's still time for one more Christmas-themed post, courtesy of Curator of Children's Literature Laura Wasowicz. The charming engraving below raises two interesting questions you might want to mull over as you finish off the pecan pie. First, where would Anderson have ...
