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PAILLERON, Édouard. ~ La Poupée… exemplaire unique. Paris: Imprimerie de “l’Illustration”, 1883.

First edition: A children’s story written for the author’s daughter and her doll: ‘Exemplaire unique’, but actually one of two recorded copies (the other in the Bibliothèque nationale). more...

Pailleron was a prolific and successful literary figure in Paris, as co-director of the Revue des Deux mondes and author of many plays. The Bibliothèque nationale copy contains an inscription permitting the recipient (presumably the printer or editor) to print one more copy only (presumably this one). Several later editions followed, but we can find no more examples of the first. Young Marie-Louise Pailleron appears (with her brother) as the co-subject in John Singer Sargent’s first dual portrait, painted in 1880 (she later recorded that she made no less than 83 sittings for it).. see full details

£400

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MOREAU-NÉLATON, Étienne, illustrator. ~ Les grands Saints des petits enfants: légendes en images. Paris: [Charles Verneau for] Léon Chailley, 1896.

First edition, inscribed by the artist to a young girl: ‘à ma chère amie Marguerite bien affectueusement. more...

E. Moreau-Nélaton’. An unusual illustrated book of saints dedicated to his children, with plates in a distinctive gauzy style by painter, prodigious art collector and art historian, Moreau-Nélaton. His style was influenced by Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot.. see full details

£300

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BLUNDELL, William. ~ [Copybook]. [Sussex, 1868].

A typical Victorian handwriting copybook, devoting a page to each letter of the alphabet, with a single sentence, phrase of word repeated over several lines, the text of varying size. more...

‘All thy commandments are righteousness’; ‘Be ye angry and sin not’; ‘Fulminate’; ‘Knowledge is Power’, ‘Mathematician’; ‘Obrometer’, ‘Vice is attended with sorrow’; ‘X begins no word in the English language’. The sequence is broken in two places, with 2 pages of elementary mathematical exercises, and the last page is signed ‘William Blundell June 29th 1868 in Sussex’.. see full details

£150

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ETRENNES DIVERTISSANTES. ~ Etrennes Divertissantes ou Collection d’historiettes agréables; ornée de jolies gravures, qui ont rapport au sujet pour la présente année. Paris: Maillard de Bresson, [n.d., c. 1750-65].

Not found in any of the usual online or printed sources, a delightful juvenile almanac, containing ten moral verses each with a vignette, engraved throughout. more...

Though the publisher Maillard de Bresson produced several other almanacs, and this one is quite typical of the genre, it seems to have eluded bibliographers, including Grand-Carteret. The Journal historique et littéraire (January 1756) gives a useful account of the publisher’s business: ‘M. Maillard de Bressan continue a vendre des caractéres, des desseins & vignettes, des armes à jour, des papiers peints, des sentences, des devises, & forme avec succès la suite de ses fables morales, & instructives pour la jeunesse de l’un et l’autre sexe. It fait des envois auc Communautés Religieuses & à toutes personnes chargées de l’éducation des enfants, ou à des Marchands qui s’adressant à lui. Il demeure actuellement au Collége de Cambray, pres de la rue Saint Jacques, à Paris’.. see full details

£1500

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DESBORDES, Ludovica Brentano von La Roche, baroness. ~ Kinderlieder. Regensburg: G. Joseph Manz, 1853.

First edition, rare, of this collection of children’s songs. more...

Ludovica Brentano, later baroness Desbordes (1787-1854), affectionately known as Lulu, was grand daughter of Sophie von La Roche (the first widely known German female novelist) and she became patron of the Grimm brothers; contributing two tales to their Kinder- und Hausmärchen.. see full details

£350

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(MUSIC). ~ Musikanten [coloured broadside]. [Germany c. 1800-1825.]

An attractive juvenile broadside, illustrating players of 16 different instruments, including guitar, flute harp, keyboard, trumpet, hurdy-gurdy and percussion. more...

. see full details

£700

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SPEIRS, James, editor and publisher. ~ Sown in the spring-time. Addresses delivered to the New Church Sunday School, Camden Road, London. London: James Speirs, 1879.

James Speirs was a prolific evangelical speaker and publisher, whose printed output suggests he was an important figure in the Victorian Sunday School movement. more...

Sown in the spring-time collects 12 addresses aimed at a juvenile audience by Speirs and others (R.L. Tafel, Alfred J. Johnson, Samuel Teed and Charles A. Faraday) several on a theme of natural metaphor: “About Hares and Tortoises”; “The Horse and its correspondence”, “The Serpent and its correspondence” and “Trees”. . see full details

£60

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JUSSIEU, L[aurent]. P. de. ~ Simon de Nantua, or le marchand Forain, ouvrage qui a obtenu le prix fondé par un anonyme, et proposé par la Société pour l’instruction élémentaire; en faveur du meilleur livre destiné à servir de lecture au people des villes et des campagnes. Paris: [Imprimerie de Fain] for ‘L. Colas, imprimeur-libraire de la Société pour l'instruction élémentaire’, 1818.

First edition. more...

This immensely popular juvenile novel emphasises thrift and hard work through the character of Simon, a travelling salesman. It was published by La Société pour l’instruction élémentaire following a competition, with a prize of 1000 francs donated by an anonymous benefactor, for a work of no more than 250 pages in which were ‘tracés avec simplicité, précision et sagesse, le principes de religion chrétienne, de morale, de prudence sociale’, for the improvement of everyday town and country people. There were numerous subsequent editions in France, as well as translations into Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, Greek and even Breton.

A nephew of the Jussieu brothers of botanical fame, Laurent Jussieu became director of police to the French minister for the interior in 1837.. see full details

£450

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