Search

An attractive copy of a scarce English edition of the complete fairy tales by Madame d’Aulnoy. First published in 1697 as Contes des Fées, with another volume appearing in 1698 under the title Les Contes nouveau, she wrote some thirty stories in all, some of which, like ‘L’Oiseau bleu’ and ‘Le Chatte blanche’ have become classics. Numerous editions of her works have been published since with varying degrees of completeness. All eighteenth century editions in French and English (as of course the original late seventeenth century French editions) are now pretty scarce and as they were well read, they are seldom found in good condition. Despite a few minor scuffs, this is a handsome copy in contemporary tree calf.
'Comment concilier l'aventureuse existence de cette virago sans scrupules', asks René Herval, 'avec le délicieux talent de l'auteur des Contes de Fées … car il est indéniable que le même esprit qui médita la perte du baron d'Aulnoy a créé une oeuvre qui l'emporte même sur celle de Perrault' (qv. Dictionnaire des Lettres Françaises XVII, pp. 86-87).
There were a number of early editions of the English text of Aulnoy’s Contes des fées, which was first published in English in 1721 (ESTC lists NLW, Bodleian, Harvard, Miami and Clark). Editions followed in 1722 (Bodleian, Penn); 1728 (BL, Worcester Oxford, Newberry, Illinois, Michigan, Penn, Yale and National Library of Australia); 1737 (Edinburgh University, NLW, Harvard and New York University); 1749 (Cleveland Public, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, UCLA and Clark); 1749 (Princeton, Alberta, UCLA).

A scarce collection of moral tales for children set on the ‘ornamented farm’ of Mr Byron, in ‘a romantic valley’ in Lancashire, near the magnificent Lake Windermere. Once a year, Mr Mereworth, a curate and an old friend of Mr Byron, comes to visit, to the delight of Byron’s children who remember his many stories with great fondness. Mr. Mereworth, a keen educator, alerts them to the value of the story ‘which was intended to impress upon the minds of those who heard it, many salutary lessons; which would remind them of the uncertainty of all human prospects, and of the facility with which the greatest advantages may be lost’. The main part of the book tells the story of Musul, third son of a wealthy grandee of Persia, who inherited nothing from his father but a ring, a gem and a cloak: the story shows how, after much suffering, his use of these gifts and his virtuous choices bring him happiness. After several other tales and verses - including a humorous short story, ‘The Prince that had a long nose’ - a final section, ‘The Lessons of Adversity’, reinforces the moral purpose of Kendall’s tales and includes a number of anthropomorphic stories about animals, birds and plants.
Edward Augustus Kendall was a key figure in changing the way animals were represented in children’s fiction, moving away from the allegorical towards the naturalistic, giving the animals themselves a voice. Other well known writers such as Dorothy Kilner, Anna Laetitia Barbauld and Sarah Trimmer also made important contributions to this change in taste, but it was Kendall who was the principal pioneer, developing new techniques of narrative form to present the thought processes of animals. His Keeper’s Travels in Search of his Master, Crested Wren and Burford Cottage and its Robin Red Breast are seen as important predecessors of The Water Babies and The Wind in the Willows. Kendall is also remembered as a philanthropist and social campaigner, author of the important topographical dictionary, Travels through the Northern Parts of the United States, 1809 and of The English Boy at the Cape, one of the first novels to be set in South Africa.

A delightful illustrated essay on quadrupeds by the fifteen year old Gerrit Lodewijk Hendrik Hooft, who later entered politics and served as burgomaster of the Hague from 1843 to 1858. In a brief preface, Hooft sets out his reasoning for undertaking this project: that of all the qualities of the many animals in creation - such as the eyesight of an eagle able to spot a lamb from way up high - only man has a soul and has the ability to study and understand them in order to praise God for their creation. The realisation of this ‘agreeable duty’ has led him to decide to spend his leisure hours putting together this project in the hopes that it will bring pleasure to his parents:
‘Convaincu de ce devoir agréable, j’ai intention d’employer mes heures de loisir a faire une courte description des proprietés particulieres des quadrupedes; en y ajoutant les animaux mêmes dessinés en encre de Chine. -- Je ne doute que mes chers Parents n’applaudissent à ce dessein et c’est dans cette douce esprance que je me dis avec respect leur obeissant fils, G.L.H. Hooft’.
The manuscript is charmingly illustrated and shows Hooft to have been an accomplished artist for his age: there are eleven pen and ink drawings of quadrupeds in a variety of landscape settings. The animals included are mostly domestic animals: bulls, cows, horses, donkeys, sheep, rams, goats (does and bucks), angora goats, pigs and wild boar. In each case, the most notable characteristics of the animal are given below the drawing. The illustrations are simply but strikingly framed with a yellow wash between single ruled lines. The title page is illustrated in a different style, with a monument bearing the date, 1794, and an inscription from Genesis: ‘Dieu vit tout ce qu’il avait fait, et voilà il était très bon’; the monument is topped with an urn and is set in a landscape filled with domestic and exotic animals, including a lion in the foreground. Facing the title-page is an 8 line stanza of a poem, beginning ‘Arrêtez-vous mes yeux! contemplez les merveilles de ce Dieu’.

A delightful children’s edition of sixty of Aesop’s fables, printed in parallel text in English and French, with woodcut engravings throughout. The woodcuts, one to accompany each fable, are mostly unsigned, but a good number bear the initials ‘JE’ or ‘WP’. This selection was first published in 1732 as Amusing and instructive fables in French and English, and all earlier editions are scarce. The 1732 edition is not in ESTC but OCLC lists a copy at Trinity College Dublin; both OCLC and ESTC lists one copy only of the 1738 ‘second edition’ (second volume dated 1736), at the National Library of Scotland. ESTC also lists two copies of the 1747 second edition of Vol II and the ‘third edition’ of Vol I (both at BL and Bodleian only). This title was first used in the 1760 edition, located in OCLC at Princeton only and not listed in ESTC.

‘It was thought necessary to adorn these Fables with Cuts, as daily experience shews, that young People are fond of pictures; and that many Children, who would never look into books, were they unadorned, are thereby often allured, and invited to turn them over. The delight Cuts give to the eye, makes young People attend with pleasure to the explanation of them; and by this means they imbibe, at an age when they are most susceptible of impression, many solid and rational principles, which are of use ever after’ (Preface, pp. iii-iv).

An attractive copy of the second edition of this compilation of English literature, first published in 1799 for the French market. Inspired by the success of The Beauties of the Spectator, Angelo Vergani assembled the present anthology of ‘Fables, Moral Tales, Histories, Allegories and Reflexions selected from the most eminent English authors with a view to afford farther assistance to those who are desirous of becoming thoroughly acquainted with the elegance and beauty of the English Language’. The extracts are taken from Johnson, Chesterfield, Middleton, Shakespeare, Sterne, Goldsmith and many others, as originally published in the Spectator, Tatler and Guardian. Although the work is intended chiefly for those learning the English language, Vergani suggests that the passages selected are such as will bring pleasure to ‘all sorts of readers’.

"'All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy.' Who this Jack was, we never heard, but we assent to the principle; and it must be confessed, that youth is the time to obtain a stock of health, and that is best promoted by moderate exercise."

A scarce American piracy of this delightful book of children’s pastimes, illustrated with a wood-engraved vignette on the title-page of a boy in a barrow and 15 charming full-page wood engravings depicting different children’s games, with a caption title to identify each plate. Each page has an illustration on one side and text on the other, where details of the particular sports or games are described. The woodcuts depict Battledoor & Shuttlecock, Trap Ball, Hop Scotch, a Rocking Horse, Marbles, Trundling a Hoop, ‘Have a ride in my chair’, Swinging, Foot Ball, Flying a Kite, Bow and Arrow, ‘I Spie! Hi!’, Blind Man’s Buff, Skipping along rope and Bait the Bear.
‘To prevent bodily weakness and infirmity, exercise is necessary, and one physician has said, that ‘he did not know which was most necessary to the human frame, food or motion’. To play with battledore and shuttlecock or with trap and ball, is good exercise; and if we had it in our power to grant, not only the children of the affluent, but even such of the poor as are impelled by necessity to pick cotton, card wool, to sit and spin or reel all day, should have at least one hour, morning and evening, for some youthful recreations’ (pp. 6-7).
This title was first issued by Darton and Harvey in London in 1801 when it formed part of ‘The Infant’s Own Book-Case’, a boxed library set for children. OCLC lists the original Darton edition at the V&A, Princeton, Indiana and UCLA. This book has continued to catch the popular imagination and has been reprinted in modern times including an edition published in 1986 with a preface by Justin Schiller. The date estimate for this edition is taken from the OCLC McGill entry which cites the publisher’s address at No. 147 Market Street as noted in the 19th century American children’s book trade directory WWW site. Another OCLC entry gives [1810] and lists copies at Dartmouth, Connecticut Historical Society, Yale, Syracuse, NYPL and Winterthur.
NB - Princeton date their copy to 1801.