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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 delightful juvenile picture book of characters from the Old Testament. Each hand-coloured plate bears a full-page oval engraving depicting a scene featuring a well-known character from the bible, with a prayer or affirmation (hence the ‘soliloquy’) in the form of a couplet, at the top and bottom of the picture. The emphasis is on heroic examples and how to emulate them, such as the patience of Job and the trustfulness of Elijah. The bible reference is also given to each plate, presumably to facilitate further study.
This issue was printed for ‘J. and E. Wallis’ in London and also for John Wallis’ Marine Library in Sidmouth in Devon. This was a circulating library set up in 1809 in the seaside town to take advantage of the new fashion for sea bathing. The choice of these brightly coloured pictorial representations of biblical figures, with a prayerful couplet to each picture, makes the perfect seaside easy-reading, while gently reminding the child of his or her Christian duties. Presumably it was also intended to engross the young child for hours of happy reflection leaving the parents free to enjoy the benefits of the seaside.
This is of one two issues of this text, with slightly different imprints which are dated by OCLC and Copac to between 1819 and 1830. The other issue lists just ‘E. Wallis’ in the imprint and is usually listed as the earlier of the two issues. However, internal evidence on this copy dates this issue to 1818.

A scarce Welsh juvenile devotional work, intended for both private and school use by children. Presented in eight chapters in question and answer form, including ‘On the Being and Attributes of God’, ‘On the Mahometan, Pagan, Jewish and Christian Religions’, ‘On Miracles’, ‘On the dire Effects of Sin, and the Means of Grace’ and ‘On a Variety of entertaining Subjects’. This last chapter includes proverbs, amusing anecdotes, prayers and a chronology. Unusually, all the questions in the catechism, or main, section of the work are given in a long list and these are then followed by all the answers, rather than the questions and answers being given consecutively, as is more usual. A possible reason for this might be to promote personal learning and testing, especially given that the principal design of the work is ‘for the Benefit of Private Learners’.

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 charming survival in a very pretty late eighteenth century red morocco binding of the second volume only of Boreman’s guide to the tower of London. This is one of a series of ten miniature volumes produced by Thomas Boreman for the newly emerging children’s book market. Boreman holds an important place in the production of miniature books and was the first publisher to create a catalogue of titles specifically for children, some time before John Newbery.

First edition of this delightful book of moral tales for children, accompanied by a series of attractive hand-coloured engravings. Essentially cautionary tales, though with a focus on the rewards of virtue rather than the perils of waywardness, each of Madame Leinstein’s tales draw together a particularly good child or group of children and contrasts them with the anti-hero in a short story in which the mean-minded (or vain, or timid, or bullying, or messy) child manages by good fortune to avoid disaster while the good child reaps the rewards for his or her actions. In each case, witnessing the benefits of the virtuous deed is sufficient to bring the other child to the path of virtue and both henceforth become firm friends. In one of the tales, the unfortunate hero is a young robin, whose nest is in ‘a pretty garden, where no bad boys ever came’, in the middle of a beautiful rose bush. Although his parents lavished great care on him and the young bird wanted for nothing, he longed to fly about in the air like his parents and so he left the nest, only to fall, wounded, into a nearby field. Contrary to the usual laws of nature, his parents discover him, build him a field-side nest all of his own where he recuperates, learns the folly of his ways and grows into a sensible, and chastened, adult bird.
Madame Leinstein was the author of a couple of very successful schoolbooks for younger children, Punctuation in Verse, or the Good Child’s Book of Stops, 1835 and The Rudiments of Grammar in Verse or a Party to the Fair, ca. 1823. In both of these works, the text is accompanied by coloured engravings in a similar style to the present. She is also known to have translated children’s literature from the German, such as Unlucky John and his lump of silver, 1825, although there is no evidence to suggest that the present tales are a translation. A couple of American edition was published, one in Massachussets by Nathaniel Simpkins, Barnstable, circa 1832 and one by Davis Porter in Philadelphia, circa 1840.

A delightful pair of presentation bindings on these selections of short stories for young people. Charlotte Smith’s Rural Walks was first published in 1795 and was extremely popular, running to a number of editions and prompting the sequel, Rambles Farther, which was first published in 1796. All editions are fairly scarce, these particularly so. These two almost matching bindings provide a delightful example of familial presentation to a brother and sister.

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).

A delightful phrase book marked up by an early owner. Most of the markings are simple lines or crossings highlighting specific words and phrases, but there are also corrections both to grammar, such as ‘He have `[has] consulted his friends’, to spellings, such as ‘wrethed’ altered to ‘wretched’ and to sense, such as ‘N’avez-vous pas dédaigné ses conseils’ which was translated as ‘Have you not disdained his caresses?’ and has been corrected in manuscript to ‘councils’. The first part of the work contains sections of vocabulary followed by short phrases setting the given words into context. The second part of the work, ‘New, Familiar and Easy Dialogues, each preceded by a suitable vocabulary’ (pp. 67 onwards) does more of the same but using a more sophisticated vocabulary in a series of fifty dialogues. This is followed by a final glossary of English idioms, also in parallel text and in alphabetical order.
Jean Baptise Perrin was born in France but moved to Dublin where he became a teacher of French, mainly living in the houses of the gentry and tutoring their children. He was politically active and is thought to have been involved in the invitation to the French government to invade Ireland in 1795. He was elected an honorary member of the Sons of the Shamrock in 1784. He wrote numerous books of language instruction both for children and adults as well as a couple of more literary productions, Fables amusantes, 1771 and La Bonne Mère, contenant de petites pièces dramatiques, 1786. The present work was first published in 1774 (OCLC lists Chicago only) and ran to numerous editions, most of which are now scarce.

A lovely copy of a rare edition of this famous imaginary voyage, first published in 1727. Considered to be one of the best of the English imitations of Robinson Crusoe, The English Hermit was staggeringly popular, in England, throughout Europe and in America. Alternately attributed to Edward Dorrington and Alexander Bicknell, the identity of the author remained unknown until Arundell Esdaile discovered a rare edition in which the dedication was signed ‘Peter Longueville’. His hypothesis was that Longueville, angered by the publishers’ alteration of his original and their invention of Edward Dorrington, privately published his own edition in which he denounced the false changes.
Dottin described this once seminal work as a ‘genre hybride - à mi-chemin entre le récit d’aventures philosophiques et le conte de fées’. Its popularity as an adventure story is woven into the fabric of literature: George Crabbe ranked it with the Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress as books to be found in rural homes, while Dickens, Thomas Day and Charles Lamb all wrote about it. The number of editions published - in many languages - is impressive. Marshall evidently recognised the strength of its appeal to a child’s imagination and published numerous editions.

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’.

A delightfully illustrated verse fairy tale by Alicia Lefanu, Irish novelist, biographer and poet, member of the literary clan that included Frances, Thomas and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. This is Lefanu’s first published work, in which she introduces a number of strong female characters. Her subsequent works included fables for young girls, Byronic romances and historical novels as well as an important biography of Frances Sheridan.
‘In The Flowers... Lefanu adopts the romantic quest narrative of fairy tale and fantasy in order to grant her child audience sufficient independence to make moral judgments on their own. The texts do this by demonstrating the inculcation of self-governance in [its] protagonists, as well as tasking the reader to make an objective analysis of hte stories’ moral decision-making. Subsequently, Lefanu’s texts stretch the reader’s ability to empathize with, and make relevant to the real world, the stories’ various fantastic difficulties of the heart... Moreover, Lefanu’s strategic literary device allows her subtly to champion alternative and non-traditional female role models for young children, as well as resist the literary patterning of male transcendence usually associated with the romantic quest narrative’ (Jamison, Annie, Children’s Susceptible Minds: Alicia Lefanu and the “Reasoned Imagination” in Georgian Children’s Literature’ in Studies in Romanticism, Vol. 52, 2013, p. 587).
Well received by contemporary readers, the Gentleman’s Magazine commented, ‘Much credit is due to the fair Author of this neat little Poem; whose harmonious numbers strongly inculcate an excellent moral’ (GM, March 1810).

A delightful illustrated juvenile edition of Fielding’s Tom Jones published by Elizabeth Newbery. This abridged text was first published by Francis Newbery in 1769 and then in 1771. This is the first edition under Elizabeth’s name; another followed in 1795. This is an excellent example of the middle ground of children’s literature, where juvenile fiction intersects with and borrows from mainstream literature. Charmingly illustrated with six copper-engraved plates by John Lodge, this edition has very much the feel of a book: it is chunky, but it fits easily into a pocket, and, crucially, is bound in Dutch floral boards, the trademark binding of younger juveniles. The final section of bookseller’s advertisements also bridges the gap. Addressed first ‘to Parents, Guardians, and Governesses’, it lists 23 titles for children (of which this is no. 19), ‘published for the advantage of the rising Generation’. Following this is given a shorter list of books ‘in plain or elegant bindings’, for the more sophisticated reader, including such works as The Complete Eglish Farmer, Franklin’s Experiments and Observations on Electricity, a couple of editions of Shakespeare and A New and Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences.
The Newbery editions of Tom Jones are all scarce: ESTC lists the 1769 edition (n66415) at Toronto and the National Library of Wales; the 1771 edition (n17172) at Morgan only; 1778 edition (not in ESTC, OCLC lists Yale and Princeton); this apparently first edition under the Elizabeth Newbery imprint (see below) and the 1795 Elizabeth Newbery edition (n493395) at Bodleian only.

A scarce little children’s book containing four tales by the French poet, educationalist and fabulist, Louis François Jauffert. The Advertisement states that the four stories had all been previously published in The Monthly Preceptor, or Juvenile Encyclopaedia, to critical acclaim, where they were pronounced ‘by competent judges’ to be ‘among the most delightful pieces that ever were written for the entertainment and instruction of young persons’. Following this recommendation, this more accessible edition was prepared: ‘the Publisher could not refrain from the satisfaction of printing them in a size and type better calculated for general circulation than the form in which they originally appeared’. The last of the short stories, ‘The Gift of Fate, a Mythological Tale’, is translated from the German of August Lafontaine.
Jauffret was a prolific writer who has been likened to Buffon in his interest in the relationship between childhood and adult identity in a scientific and enlightened world. ‘Jauffret, permanent secretary of the Society of Observers of Man, conceived the study of children as a privileged means to pursue the Observers’ motto, ‘know thyself’, but his hestiations and aborted projects point to the conflict of his two identities as ‘Observer of Man’ and ‘Friend of Children’... the multiple roles of children in [his] works reveal the extent to which the child as object of scientific knowledge and normalizing intervention is the underside of the sentimental figure of natural and innocent childhood’ (Benzaquén, Childhood, Identity and Human Science in the Enlightenment, 2004). It was republished in 1811 with the subtitle, ‘a tale, illustrative of the arts of civilized life’.

A scarce rags-to-riches story in the manner of Little Goody Two-Shoes, in which the heroine rises from working class to the aristocracy by virtue both of her moral uprightness and of her scholarship. It is particularly interesting theme, that social mobility should be open to a young lady through attentiveness to her education, but it was not a theme that was universally approved. Mrs Trimmer clearly saw this little children’s book as dangerously revolutionary in content: ‘It is certainly very wrong to teach girls of the lower order to aspire to marriages with persons in stations so far superior to their own, or to put into the heads of young gentlemen, at an early age, an idea, that when they grow up they may, without impropriety, marry servant-maids’ (in Guardian of Education, volume I, see Osborne I, p. 260).
During the narrative of Primrose’s education and elevation, her marriage to a baronet and the happy ever after ending (’Sir William and his beauteous bride now live as an example to the great, the comfort of the poor, and the admiration of all’), there are numerous digressions and poems, some of which, such as ‘Eudoxus and Leontine’, reinforce the message of social mobility and the importance of study and education. The poems, which are unattributed, include Richard Jago’s ‘Elegy on a Black-Bird shot on Valentine’s Day’ and Isaac Watts’ ‘Love between Brothers and Sisters’.
This is one of three undated editions, probably the last as it adds Marshall’s Cheapside premises at 17 Queen Street to the imprint. The other two editions have the following wording in the imprint: ‘printed in the year when all little boys and girls should be good’: ESTC n64918, pp. 104, lists Toronto only; ESTC n47830, pp. 98, lists Bodleian, Indiana and Toronto.
This copy has an unrecorded singleton as the rear pastedown, advertising The Juvenile Magazine. This gives a total of five terminal pages of advertisements where ESTC calls for four. The present edition is dated by ESTC to 1789. However, the presence of this advertisement leaf, which describes The Juvenile Magazine, which ran from January to December 1788, as a ‘New Publication’, suggests that it was issued in 1788.

"'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.