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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’.

An important Enlightenment essay on the health and ‘physical education’ of children from earliest infancy through to the teenage years. A physician from Geneva, Jacques Ballexserd was a contemporary of Jean Jacques Rousseau, although there was no love lost between the two. Published the same year as Rousseau’s Emile, Ballexserd’s prize-winning dissertation places great significance on the natural aspects of education and is also credited with the first use of the term ‘éducation physique’. A huge controversy followed its publication, as Rousseau accused Ballexserd of plagiarism, a charge which was angrily refuted by Ballexserd.
After an introduction stressing the importance of a mother’s way of life during pregnancy, Ballexserd divides his treatise into the four stages or époques of childhood: the first starts with the care of the new-born baby through to weaning, including the importance of breast-feeding both for mother and baby, to the introduction of exercise and learning to walk at nine months, with warnings about too much kissing and petting from strangers and the dangers of swaddling and rocking babies; the second stage follows the early infancy from weaning through to the age of five or six and is interesting for its perception of the sensitivity of the small child and the dangers both of neglect and ‘over-parenting’; appropriate exercises are also suggested and the importance of plenty of fresh air throughout the seasons. It is also stressed that entertainment rather than instruction is important in guiding a young child’s physical exercise. The third section follows the child through to the age of ten or eleven: the age when in eighteenth century Europe boys changed their clothing and in twenty-first century Europe, they go to secondary school. This section gives details on clothing, nourishment, general health and dentistry, the importance of good sleep and clean air, inoculation and the importance of exercise, which includes the habit for standing for as much of the day as possible, as well as exercises to maintain the body’s natural development and to aid ciruclation: plenty of outside time is recommended in such pursuits as walking, climbing trees and ice-scating. Walking about the house without shoes on is also recommended. The final section follows the child through the teenage years up to about the age of 16: this section continues with advice on food and clothing, but also on melancholy and temperament, with suitable games and recreations and a final section on the uses of tobacco.
This was a popular work with two editions in 1762, one in 1763 and an expanded edition in 1780, along with translations into German, Wichtige Frage, Wie soll man Kinder, von ihrer Geburtsstunde an, bis zu einem gewissen mannbaren Alter (so alhier in das 15te oder 16te Jahr gesetzt wird) der Natur nach erziehen, daß sie gesund bleiben, groß und stark werden und ein langes Leben haben können?: aus dem Französoscjem übersetzt, Strasburg, 1763, and Italian, Dissertazione sull’ educazione fisica de’ fanciulli dalla loro nascita fino alla pubertà, Naples 1763.

A popular juvenile conduct book using fiction to instruct children in the proper treatment of animals. This important work anthropomorphises animals in order to use them as models of good and moral behaviour, while at the same time emphasising the beauty of the natural environment, warning against the abuse of animals and advocating proper respect for all creatures. In the introduction, Trimmer refers to her earlier An Easy Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature, 1780, in which Henry and Charlotte were ‘indulged by their Mamma’ and taken on nature walks in the fields and gardens. As a consequence of this, they ‘contracted a great fondness for Animals’ and began to wish that they could talk to them. ‘Their Mamma, therefore, to amuse them, composed the following Fabulous Histories; in which the sentiments and affections of a good Father and Mother, and a Family of Children, are supposed to be possessed by a Nest of Redbreasts; and others of the feathered race, are, by the force of imagination, endued with the same faculties’ (Introduction, p. x). The Redbreasts have made their nest in a wall covered with ivy and the mother hen is sitting on four eggs when the story opens. Soon, the happy day arrives when the four eggs hatch, ‘to whom for the sake of distinction, I shall give the names of Robin, Dicky, Flapsy, and Pecksy’. The stories involve both the upbringing of the young robins and the parents’ considerate sharing of responsibility for them, set against the background of the human family in whose garden they live, whose children, Frederick and Harriet, enjoy feeding the birds.
It was an overnight best-seller, with numerous editions well into the nineteenth century. Illustrations, often attributed to Thomas Bewick, were added to later editions. ESTC lists eleven eighteenth century editions, six London editions broadly shared by the same publishers as this edition, three Dublin editions and two Philadelphia editions. Despite this popularity, the work remains fairly scarce and each of the early editions appear to survive in relatively modest numbers. The first edition (t76171), produced by the same publishers earlier in the same year, is similarly scarce: well held in the UK (BL, Glasgow and three copies in Oxford), but only four copies in North America (Huntington, Miami, Morgan and Toronto).

A scarce Italian edition of this well-known guide to geography for young people, translated from the French and first published as Méthode pour étudier la géographie, Paris 1716. The address to the reader explains the educational structure of the work, which is designed so that even those children with weaker memories should be able to learn the contents of a chapter in half an hour. Organised by country and area - with the largest number of pages devoted to the principalities and republics of Italy - the work is presented in a series of questions and answers about the key characteristics of each place. In this manner the student is presented with information on the major cities, the rivers, mountains, islands, population, religion, monarchy and system of government of each state in turn. Instructions are also given to the student as to the best means of learning and the value of revisiting sections previously covered. A simple system of learning for six days and revising on the seventh is recommended: ‘queste sei lezioni debbono fare una settimana, e il settimo giorno egli è espediente il far ripetere le sei lezioni precedenti’.
A popular school book in Italy - here described on the title page as the ‘ninth’ edition - this appears to be the only Florentine edition. Despite the odd stain, this is an attractive copy in original condition, uncut in its ‘carta rustica’ binding.

A good clean copy of this scarce game of lotto devoted to architecture and the monuments of Paris. Each of the game cards includes an illustration of a well-known Paris building, set against a colourful landscape and accompanied by a textual description. The ‘board’ is then set out on each card in a grid of numbers and blanks which is unique to each card. The instructions sheet mentions 15 jetons, which are not present here, nor in the copy in OCLC. Alongside the grid are the illustrations of three columns and two columns of text giving information about the featured building.
The monuments featured in the game are Le Palais de la Bourse, l’Hôtel des Invalides, l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, l’Observatoire, Notre Dame de Lorette, La Porte Saint-Martin, l’Arc de Triomphe de l’Etoile, la Porte Saint-Denis, la Fontaine Richelieu, l’Embarcadère des Chemins de fer de Versailles, l’Eglise de la Madeleine, le Panthéon, le Pont du Carrousel, la Place de la Concorde, la Colonne de Juillet, le Palais de Luxembourg, le Palais du Louvre, le Corps législatif, le Palais de Justice, Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, l’Hôtel-de-Ville, le Pont Neuf, la Colonne Vendôme and l’Ecole Militaire.

A fabulously illustrated Dutch children’s almanac, with a series of hand-coloured engraved plates on children’s games and street cries. An important strand of children’s education in the Netherlands, Willem Houtgraaff started publishing his famous children’s almanacs in 1795. The present one, for the year 1799, starts with information on eclipses, a calendar, the price of rentals of houses and ships, and the costs of posts. This more traditional almanac information takes up the first part of the work, pp. 1-15, and is followed by a gallery of street cries, pp. 1-15, where the illustrations are interleaved with text in the form of poems describing the activities. These fall approximately into two types: the street seller, such as the seller of mousetraps, ink and umbrellas (a recent innovation), and the children’s pastimes, such as playing with pets, throwing marbles, flying a bird on a string or playing palette, a game involving bats and shuttlecocks. Also featured are the bagpipe player, various farmer workers and a lemon and apple seller. At the conclusion of the almanac are three short moral tales.

One of two known editions of this charming little book of ‘Walks’, or conversations, both editions undated, both provincial (the other is printed in Coventry, ‘by and for Pratt, Smith & Lesson) and both held at the British Library only.
Made up of 8 Walks and a Conclusion, the work recounts the nature rambles and conversations of the Smith family: the respectable Mr and Mrs Smith their two children, William, aged 10 and Mary, aged 8, together with a visiting nephew, Thomas, a boy of a weak constitution sent to the country for his health. Mr and Mrs Smith had retired ‘from the bustle of a very lucrative business’, to live in the West of England, where they dedicate themselves to leisure and the education of their children.
The curiosity and antics of the children in the course of the walks prompt adult explanations on subjects ranging from the cruelty of stealing birds’ nests, to astronomy, the propagation of flowers, ploughing and sewing wheat, and details on the life cycles and habits of butterflies, swallows, rooks and many other creatures. Country pastimes such as maypole dancing are described and some commentary given on social hierarchies of the past: ‘That is, my dear child, a Castle, where formerly some great Lord resided, who then had a sovereign power over his tenants, whom he used to force to fight for him in his quarrels, but happily for us, those days of ignorance and slavery are gone, and the poor enjoy the same common privileges with the rich’ (Walk V, pp. 28-29). The final walk has the children returning home to admire his uncles ‘feathered tribes’, which include hens, swans and a peacock, and to wander around his hot house where he grows grapes, melons and pineapples.
The woodcut frontispiece depicts a may day scene with children skipping around the maypole and creating an unlikely configuration of ribbons. The text includes delightful woodcut illustrations depicting scenes such as sheep shearing, the milkmaid milking a cow, the ploughman at work, a carriage with a gloomy castle and the father showing the children his greenhouse.

A charming two-penny chapbook alphabet clearly set out with a single letter to each page. Illustrated with 27 oval wood engravings, those for the letters E, G, J, K and S are copied after Bewick. Each page shows the letters in large print, with single words referring to the illustration, with the words hyphenated to syllables for easy reading and pronunciation, giving also two-letter combinations and a final sentence - also hyphenated - explaining the pictorial reference. Subjects include an African smoking tobacco, a military captain, a drunkard retching, a fiddler, an orange tree, quince, a rainbow, a usurer and the philosopher Zeno.

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 very scarce rewriting of Thomson’s Seasons for a juvenile market, together with ‘The Shepherd’s Day’, a pastoral dialogue written in imitation of John Gay, and other poems. Published under the pseudonym Bob Short - a nom de plume used throughout the eighteenth century by writers including Eliza Haywood, Robert Withy and Robert Wiley - and attributed by E.W. Pitcher to George Wright, author of The Country Squire, 1781, The Rural Christian, 1772, and a frequent contributor to the Lady’s Magazine. One of three short poems that conclude the volume is a four stanza idyll under the title ‘Colin, a Pastoral, on the Death, and in Imitation of Mr. John Cunningham’; this has the footnote, ‘Mr. Cunningham would frequently lie about in the fields, under an hedge or a tree, in which situation he wrote many of his pastorals’. This is a delightful copy of a large format book of verse for children bound in Dutch floral boards.
‘The following Poems are recommended to the Perusal of young Gentlemen and Ladies, who are fond of rural Scenes, and the Pleasures of Country Life; as they describe the Innocence, Simplicity, and unenvied Happiness of Sylvan Retirement, in a natural, concise, and entertaining manner; while the Seasons of the Year are taken from,
and pourtrayed in the lively Colours of the late Mr. Thomson, but in common Verse, for the use of those who are not fond of blank poetry, nor long descriptions’ (Advertisement).
ESTC records another edition of this work printed in London by H. Turpin &c. in 1787 (with the same collaborative imprint as this edition) but with pp. 96. This other edition appears to be printed in the smaller format associated with children’s books, ie. 16mo (the Bodleian copy measuring height 9.5cm), which would account for the greater number of pages (see ESTC n18595, at Bodleian and Toronto only). We have not been able to compare copies of the two works, but a possible explanation would be a simultaneous publication of editions for children (the pocket-sized edition) and for young people (the present edition). The choice of Dutch floral boards puts this copy firmly in the category of children’s books, but this unusually large format, suited to the more slightly more sophisticated subject matter, does suggest that it may have been intended for rather older ‘young ladies and gentlemen’.

A delightful ‘It-Novel’ narrating the adventures of the eponymous fly, at one point attributed to Oliver Goldsmith but now generally catalogued as by Stephen Jones, a hack writer associated with Elizabeth Newbery, author of A natural history of birds, 1793, A natural history of fishes, 1795 and Rudiments of Reason, 1793 (although Roscoe still treats this attribution as uncertain, listing this and several other works as by ‘S., J.’.). Chapter IV, ‘Hints to those who are fond of Fly-catching’, acquaints the reader with the fly’s initial inspiration for writing the book. A little four year old boy called Tommy Pearson is visited by his eight year old cousin, Master Laurence Sterne and the two boys demonstrate ‘a perfect pattern of benevolence’. Our hero the fly lands on Tommy’s hand while he is at dinner and Tommy catches it lightly and asks ‘Lorry’ what he should do with it. Laurence recommends that Tommy should carry the fly to the window and set it free, for it would be an enormous crime to take away its life and ‘very hard indeed’ if in the wide world there were not enough room for both of them to live. ‘Here is an excellent lesson of humanity! thought I. What a pity ‘tis, that all the little fly-catching folks in Great Britain cannot hear it! - But, continued I, they shall hear it, if it lie in my power; and now it was that I first laid the plan of this little work’ (p. 66).
With a wonderful shaggy dog story of a preface, in which the ‘editor’ tells of his fall from opulence to deprivation, his decision to turn author and his discovery in the corner of his garret of the present manuscript, ‘neatly folded up, and carefully tied round with a piece of silk ribbon. Before the preface is a charming dedication: ‘To those Young Ladies and Gentlemen who are Good and Merit Praise; and also to Those who, by a contrary Conduct, prove there is room for Reformation in them, This Book (As tending equally to confer Honour on the first, and assist the latter in becoming good) is most humbly dedicated by the Editor’. The text is followed by seven leaves of advertisements for works printed by Elizabeth Newbery.
Roscoe identifies and gives details of four variants of the Elizabeth Newbery printing of this scarce title, not including the present one. There are small details (noted below) in the cited use of capitals, square or round brackets and length of rules, but the most significant difference is the presence in this edition of the printer’s identity on the title-page, which has an extra line in the imprint, reading ‘by G. Woodfall, no. 22, Paternoster-Row’. Roscoe dates the first Elizabeth Newbery edition to between 1787 and 1789, based on the contents of the final advertisement leaves. The other London edition, with no publisher’s name in the imprint, appeared in 1790 (ESTC n19104, at Morgan only). ESTC also records two American printings of this title, both in Boston, the first ‘printed and sold’ by John Norman in 1794 (ESTC w6599 at American Antiquarian Society and Yale) and the second by Samuel Etheridge in 1797 (ESTC w11317, at American Antiquarian Society). A Newcastle piracy was published in 1798 by Solomon Hodgson under the imprint ‘London: printed in the Year 1798’ (ESTC lists Alexander Turnbull Library only).
Details on this edition: LONDON: in TP in italic caps, 1.3 cm long (including colon); ‘Price 6d.’ in round brackets and in italics; A6r: double below ‘Preface’, 2.5 cm long; B2r: double rule below caption, 2.5 cm long; p. 121: ‘The End.’ in roman caps, 1.5 cm long.

A delightful set of a scarce children’s book, generally acknowledged to be Dorothy Kilner’s best work. In it she follows the loveable mouse Nimble in his escapades through various households. Kilner’s desire to instruct children is a given, but this is carefully achieved through entertainment as children are encouraged - both through the text and the illustrations - to enjoy following the mouse in his travels. The text is accompanied by two full-page frontispieces and a total of 46 woodcut illustrations in the text. These illustrations capture not only numerous hilarious incidents involving the mouse’s interaction with the the humans of the story but also portray charming details of daily life and childhood occupations.
The introduction to the second volume reads: ‘It is now some months ago since I took leave of my little readers, promising in case I should ever hear any further tidings of either Nimble or Longtail, I would certainly communicate it to them: and as I think it extremely wrong not to fulfil any engagement we enter into, I look upon myself bound to give them all the information I have since gained, relating to those two little animals; and doubt not but they will be glad to hear what happened to them, after Nimble was frightened from the writing table by the entrance of my servant’ (p. vii).
In the Guardian of Education, Kilner’s friend Mrs Trimmer described this work as ‘one of the prettiest and most instructive books that can be found for very young readers. A book, indeed, which Mothers and even Grandmothers may read with interest and pleasure’.
First published in a single volume complete in itself in 1783. This is one of several editions of the two volume work to be printed by Marshall. In this edition, ‘To the Reader’ is signed ‘M.P.’, as in Mary Pelham (after Maryland Point), the pseudonym of Dorothy Kilner, and is undated. The catchword on I, 15 is ‘colours’ and below the imprint in both volumes the price is given as ‘Price Six Pence in Gilt Paper’.

Sole edition of a scarce provincial schoolbook relating to arithmetic and geometry, with a focus on teaching the rudiments of business and finance to a rising generation of skilled merchants. Gilbert Dyer was master a school for children of freemen of the Corporation of Weavers, Fullers and Shearmen which was based at Tuckers’ Hall in Exeter. He was later a notable antiquary and bookseller who assembled what was said to be the largest circulating library outside London. Exeter’s woollen trade was a cornerstone of its wealth and its freemen - whose sons would have been educated at Dyer’s school - among its wealthiest citizens.
Dyer’s system of arithmetic enables pupils to calculate simple and compound interest, introduces them to the basic terms of business partnerships, discusses the use of barter and exchange on the Continent and discusses particular rates of pay for certain kinds of tradesmen, including glaziers and plumbers. In order to enliven the text, Dyer presents an array of fictitious London and Amsterdam merchants, who present template promissory notes, bills of exchange and bills of parcels as examples to the young readers. These merchants are brought to life by their imaginary names, including William Woollendraper, Henry Hosier, Abel Abebl, Rachel Rich, Peter Paywell, Charles Careful, Roger Retail and Timothy Trusty.

Provenance: Charming student ownership inscriptions to front and rear pastedowns: ‘Edward Harper is my name. England is my Nation. Hampton is my dwelling... When I am dead and in my Grave... Take up this Book and think of me. When I am quite forgotten’.

‘In making amusement the vehicle of instruction, consists the grand secret of early education’

First edition of this delightful and beautifully illustrated natural history book for children. Presented in easy sections, starting with Animals, which are divided into Whole Hoofed, Cloven Hoofed and Digitated, also with Pinnated (seal) and Winged (bat), followed by Reptiles and Insects, which are divided into seven sections. An index is supplied after the text, which is accompanied by nine engraved plates depicting some ninety native mammals, reptiles and insects. The final plate includes an illustration of a book worm. In the Preface, Fenn sets out her philosophy of education, concluding that the ‘Rational Dame’ of the title should be ‘a sensible, well-informed Mother’. The second part of the Preface contains ‘Extracts from Superior writers, whose sentiments agree with those of the Compiler of this little volume’.
‘To form the constitution, disposition, and habits of a child, constitutes the chief duty of a mother... Perhaps nothing could more effectively tend to infuse benevolence than the teaching of little ones early to consider every part of animated nature as endued with feeling; as beings capable of enjoying pleasure, or suffering pain: than to lead them gently and insensibly to a knowledge how much we are indebted to the animal creation; so that to treat them with kindness is but justice and gratitude. We should inculcate incessantly that man is the lord, but ought not to be the tyrant of the world’ (Preface).
The frontispiece, which shows a mother taking her two children on a nature walk, is by Royce after Daniel Dodd. This was a very successful publication for John Marshall, who went on to publish a further five editions, all undated and all similarly scarce (ESTC t206781, t168244, t122971, n23617, with combined locations: BL, Bodleian, NLW, Birmingham, Yale, UCLA, Columbia, Lilly, Toronto, Penn and Virginia). A Dublin edition was also published, by T. Jackson, in 1795 (ESTC t168223, at Cambridge, NLI and Rylands).