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Two popular literary fairy tales. L’Oranger et l’abeille appeared first in Madame d’Aulnoy’s Contes des fées (1697) while La Reine de l'Ile des fleurs is taken from Les Illustres fées (1698), sometimes attributed to Madame d’Aulnoy and sometimes to the Chevalier de Mailly. Hélot, 177. Issued as part of Chalopin’s Contes des fées series.

Dean’s Rag Book, number 291. A superbly preserved rag book from Dean and Co, who pioneered the rag book for the youngest children in 1903, producing boldly coloured printed calico books designed to be washable and indestructible. The Dean logo show two dogs pulling at a rag book. The pinked edges were designed to minimise fraying, and in this case the copy is unused.

Lots of Things, in addition to its various vocabulary images, includes the memorable verse:

‘A leaf of lettuce, or a bunch
Of carrots is, to rabbits
Far nicer than a costly lunch:
They have such frugal habits.

Pigs on the other hand are crude
And greedy, while their feeding
Is mannerless and even rude;
It shews their lack of breeding’. WorldCat: Auckland (NZ) and Cotsen (Princeton).

A file copy of Dean’s Rag Book no. 324, full of patriotic imagery - a union jack flying on a sandcastle, a shamrock, rose and thistle, a crown and sceptre, a medal, flags, a drum, a toy aeroplane and a soldier. A superbly preserved rag book from Dean and Co, who pioneered the rag book for the youngest children in 1903, producing boldly coloured printed calico books designed to be washable and indestructible. The Dean logo show two dogs pulling at a rag book. The inserted slip lists further numbered titles in 4 series of different sizes, as well as Dean’s rag dolls. The pinked edges were designed to minimise fraying, and in this case the copy is unused. JISC LibraryHub lists a copy at NLS. The Cotsen copy listed by WorldCat at Princeton has the same title but a different series number (228).

An intriguing homemade book created by an aspiring young writer, copying extracts from a popular juvenile title, Marmaduke Multiply, published in 1817 and designed to teach multiplication with engaging illustrations. In this version, a Francis (or possibly Frances) Taylor has copied extracts from the book using different hands, without much thought to order. Some are captioned ‘with my left hand’, another ‘half with my right hand’ as though he or she were deciding which was the best hand, or simply trying writing and drawing with an unfamiliar hand. Given the general insistence on right hand writing in the period it is an unusual survival, albeit rudimentary, an evidence of active learning activities in the acquisition of early literacy.

First edition. A near pristine file copy of this French language example of an early rag book from Dean and Co, who pioneered the rag book for the youngest children in 1903, producing boldly coloured printed calico books designed to be washable and indestructible — the Dean logo shows two dogs pulling at a rag book, and the inserted advert leaf states that children can carry the book in their mouths without danger ( ‘Les couleurs employées dans ces livres sont fortement fixés. Les enfants peuvent les porter à la bouche sans aucun danger. Ces livres peuvent être lavé’). Qu’est cela? is a simple vocabulary book, naming fifty familiar objects including toys (dolls, a cup-and-ball, a paintbox, a toy train, a jack-in-the box, a kite and a rocking horse) as well as a rifle, a sword, a drum and an automobile. No library copies found in WorldCat or JISC LibraryHub.

A file copy from Dean and Co, who pioneered the rag book for the youngest children in 1903, producing boldly coloured printed calico books designed to be washable and indestructible — the Dean logo shows two dogs pulling at a rag book. It illustrates twenty-four animals, including the dog on the cover, as well as butterflies, a giraffe, a camel, a parrot, a kangaroo, three monkeys and a turkey, all captioned in French. The pinked edges were designed to minimise fraying, and in this case the copy is unused. No library copies found in WorldCat or JISC LibraryHub.

First (and only) edition: an attractive children’s book about the Exposition, famous for the creation of the Eiffel Tower, which, naturally, little Madeleine and Jacques rush to visit first in the story before going on to explore the rest of the world’s fair: trying out Elias Howe’s sewing machine and Edison’s phonograph and sampling the exotic delights of Japan, Russia, Algeria, Senegal, and New Caledonia.
Cotsen 814 (‘Élodie Lamarque is a pseudonym of Gaston Bonnefont [1851–1911]’).

First edition of a sophisticated manual for young artists, several times reprinted and translated, with first edition very scarce. The largest number of Bouvier’s sequential lessons consider the grinding and mixing of oil colours, with very detailed instructions for proportions of ingredients. The large lithograph plates are equally detailed, showing grinding tools and methods, the ideal colour box, easels, brushes and a well organised palette. Pierre-Louis Bouvier (1765–1836) was one of the most gifted miniaturists of his era. ‘Pierre Louis Bouvier studied under Fabre in Geneva and Vestier in Paris. He established himself in Geneva as a miniaturist, inventing a colour-grinding machine and publishing a Young Artists' and Amateur Painters' Handbook, which became a classic and was translated into German and English. In 1828, Bouvier took over from Reverdin as director of the Geneva École de Figure, a post he held until his death. His best-known works are his portraits of Empress Josephine (private collection), Mme de Staël, Lalime the Engraver, his Self-portrait and his portrait of The Artist's Children (Geneva) and the portrait of John Rocca (Geneva)’ (Benezit).

A rare broadside offering a proposal to put the poor (’Beggars, or idle stroling persons’) to work in the making of sail-cloth in a workhouse ‘to be built, in some convenient Place near the River Thames, within five Miles of London, to be managed by Governors, Gratis, in the Nature of St. Thomas’s’ Hospital.’ Its anonymous author notes ‘That... many Thousands of Men, Women, and Children are daily stroling about these great Cities of London and Westminster, without Employment, and having found, by Begging and Pilfering, an easier Way of Maintenance, than by Working, do initiate and train up their Children therein, as if it was a lawful Trade: Insomuch that they are become insolent, and often disturb People in the Streets and Houses by Day, and render them unsafe by Nights...’

The item appears in Wing ( L1366A) which suggests 1697 as an unlikely date of publication. It is more likely to date from c. 1731 when an ‘Act for Further Encouraging the Manufacture of British Sail Cloth’ was passed in Parliament — the broadside’s author notes the the Commons have recently considered methods of encouraging the manufacture of sail-cloth. Goldsmiths’-Kress no. 06901.1.

A popular Épinal print by the firm first established in 1860 as Pinot & Sagaire, later (1872) just ‘Pinot’. Founded by François Charles Pinot (1817-1874), who had joined the Pellerin firm in 1847 and left in 1860 to found the rival firm, the Imagerie Pinot & Sagaire, or Nouvelle Imagerie d’Epinal.

First edition. The first volume of the first English edition of Grimm’s fairy tales. The copy belonged to G.M Robertson, artist and illustrator Graham Robertson’s father and loosely inserted is a letter from Kerrison Preston (dated Christmas 1970) to Gillian Preston where he notes, ‘This Grimm belonged to Graham Robertson’s father Graham Moore Robertson and must have influenced the child’s upbringing, and so it has some association value’.

Indeed, Robertson wrote in his memoir, Time Was of his early and defining interest in fairy-tales: ‘I had reached the ripe age of thirteen and had for years been an earnest student of fairy-tales, ballads and romances. In the course of my studies I was continually coming across dazzlingly beautiful ladies, princesses lovely as the day, radiant fairies, exquisite though distressed heroines. There was never any doubt as to the beauty of these ladies; it took you flat aback at first sight and you knew at once that you were in the presence of a Fairy or a Princess or at least of an ill-used stepdaughter — which came to the same thing in the end … I looked round me in the solid, comfortable, mid Victorian world. There were pretty girls and girls who were not pretty; there really seemed very little difference between them. They roused no particular interest, and as to taking one flat aback — well, it was not in their line. I concluded, after some research, that the race of Fairy Princesses was extinct, and I didn’t much mind’. (p. 53).

First Rackham edition. Number 65 of 500 copies. Gettings, Arthur Rackham, p. 139; Hudson, Arthur Rackham, pp. 118-119.

A unique album written and illustrated by the artist and illustrator W. Graham Robertson for Marion (‘Binkie’), daughter of artist Arthur Melville who had died in 1904. It is one of several (another is in the Ray collection in the Morgan Library, New York) devoted to the young girl who became Robertson’s muse in the years following Melville’s tragic death. It comprises ‘Six Songs of the Day’ and ‘Six Songs of the Dusk’, the typed poems accompanied by his illustrations, usually depicting himself ‘Ba’ and the infant Binkie, and bear titles such as ‘Glad Day’, ‘Sea Pinks’, ‘Sand Castles’, ‘The Nowhere Place’ and ‘The Lady Dream Come True’. The larger watercolours are on Robertson’s Rutland Gate stationery.

A rare perspective peepshow depicting a boar hunt in a forest, with horses and dogs. Engelbrecht (1684-1756) produced many different designs of these sets in three sizes, of which ours is an example of the smallest (and rarest). They were designed to be viewed when slotted successively into a perspective viewing box but can equally be appreciated when standing in simple slots or stands. One of the parts is marked ‘N. 87’ in the plate. In this example the prints have been mounted in the early nineteenth-century. cf. Ralph Hyde, Paper Peepshows (2015), pp. 14–15 and David Robinson, ‘Augsburg Peepshows’, Print Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 2 (June 1988), pp. 188–191.�

A rare perspective peepshow depicting a stag hunt in a forest, with horses and dogs. Among the hunters is one with a rifle, and two with horns. Engelbrecht (1684-1756) produced many different designs of these sets in three sizes, of which ours is an example of the smallest (and rarest). They were designed to be viewed when slotted successively into a perspective viewing box but can equally be appreciated when standing in simple slots or stands. One of the parts is marked ‘N. 87’ in the plate. In this example the prints have been mounted in the early nineteenth-century. cf, Ralph Hyde, Paper Peepshows (2015), pp. 14–15 and David Robinson, ‘Augsburg Peepshows’, Print Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 2 (June 1988), pp. 188–191.�

First published in 1819, Le Poupée bien élevée proved popular among children on both sides of the English Channel, with numerous editions in both French and English (the latter as The Well Bred Doll). Jeanne Sophie Mallès de Beaulieu (176-1825) was the author of numerous moral and entertaining stories for children including Le Robinson de douze ans (1820).

First edition of the first British act of legislation to deal specifically with the provision of education in England and Wales. It instituted schooling for children between the ages of five and twelve, established local education authorities with defined powers and authorized public money to improve existing schools. Most importantly, it demonstrated a commitment to compulsory provision on a national scale. Introduced by Liberal politician William Forster (and sometimes referred to as ‘Forster’s Act’) it also marks an important milestone in the history of literacy and literature, and has been seen as a primary stimulant of the growth in reading and of popular fiction for a mass market.

A striking and moving memorial to a young boy, a vision of a child’s paradise with chromolithograph scrapbook cuttings of birds, horses, children, dancers, flowers and foliage, together with cuttings of hair (some woven). It combines two popular Victorian domestic crafts of hair art and scrapbooking, within an accomplished (but probably also domestic) wooden frame in the gothic style. With its supersized hair-carrying birds dwarfing diminutive dancers this is an inadvertently unsettling piece of Victorian naïve art.

A French edition, translated from the German original by Francois Jean Philibert Aubert de Vitry. A series of dialogues addressed to young children (a boy and a girl) aged four and five, emphasising all the essential virtues of parenthood. The attractive aquatint plates were probably issued with the original edition and include several delightful family scenes. The first French edition appeared in 1825 and the date of 1837 for this reprint is taken from the Princeton Cotsen catalogue. cf. Barbier, II 1010; Querard VIII 508-10.

A charming miniature juvenile library, complete with its original glass fronted case.
Cotsen A-50 (wanting the glass front); Bondy, p. 77; Welsh, 2012, 2788, 5569, 6481, 3312 and 5558. In the US, Worldcat lists the Wightman copy at the Morgan Library, the Cotsen copy at Princeton, the Adomeit copy at Indiana together with copies at University of Colorado and Oak Spring.