•  ESTC T63374 & T68757.   Contemporary half calf and marbled paper–covered sides, rebacked and corners refurbished; marbled paper sides with surface wear. Front pastedown with bookplate as above, pastedown and free endpaper with small pencilled annotations. Octavo history with small portion torn away in outer margin (only) of final “Additions” leaf; quarto history with dust-soiling to title-page around edges of bound-in octavo and following leaves showing impression of bind-in. Occasional light foxing only, to both items, mostly confined to margins; quarto with a very few early inked corrections and annotations.  (33314)

When in need of a little entertainment, consider fireside games like hide and seek or the cat and the mouse! George Frederick Pardon advises his Victorian audience on fun pastimes for children, from mechanical puzzles to charades and “parlour magic.” Pardon (1824–84) frequently wrote handbooks on card games, chess, and billiards using the pseudonym “Captain Crawley,” in addition to the “Uncle George” pseudonym he used here.

The engraved, black-and-white frontispiece (with tissue guard) featuring families indulging in “parlour pastimes" was done bythe Brothers Dalziel.

Binding:  Publisher's textured green cloth with gilt lettering and decoration to spine; front board has stylized gilt lettering and a gilt vignette of a child entertaining a crowd of sitting children, with corner lily decorations in blind. The rear board design is identical but all in blind. All edges gilt.

Provenance:  From the library of Ellery Yale Wood, a collector of children's books and young adult literature, with her name inked on front free endpaper.

•  Binding as above; spine darkened, corners bumped, boards dirtied, with embossed lettering on the rear board pencil-filled by a childish hand. Small spot of webbing exposed at hinges; light finger smudging to several pages. Clearly cherished and often consulted by children for its many amusements.  (38185)

The illustrations number three, of which two are hand-colored. The uncolored one is on the front wrapper and is a repeat of that on p. 4. One cataloguer says the plates are “metal-engraved” but we would think them wood-engraved.

Issued in the series “Peter Parley's smaller tales,” thisincorporates the “be kind to animals” lessons seen in this era.

Provenance:  Very clear, even elegant ownership signature on front wrapper “Mary D. Perkins, 1829"; “Mary Dening Perkins, 1829" on front free endpaper. Most recently in the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

WorldCat locates a total of five libraries reporting ownership.

•  Shoemaker 38790. Not in Sternick; not in Rosenbach.   Publisher's bright yellow wrappers, printed and illustrated. Light finger soiling on front wrapper along fore-edge; spotting to interior, not distressing; a charming little book.  (38490)

Provenance:  From the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, sans indicia.

•  American Imprints 8657; Rosenbach, Children's, 763 (this copy differing slightly from Rosenbach's physical description).   Publisher's printed tan paper wrappers. Some minor foxing, otherwise clean. An unusually crisp, unworn example of the genre. (38474)

The inside front wrapper bearsan interesting little early affixed label reading “Such is life.”

WorldCat finds no copies west of Rochester, NY.

Provenance:  From the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Not in Rosenbach.   Publisher's printed tan paper wrappers, lightly dust-soiled, extremities rubbed, spine unobtrusively reinforced. Moderate foxing; inkstain to outer portions of last few leaves, touching but not obscuring a few letters, paper brittle in stained area. Showing signs of age, but none of childish abuse.  (38473)

The engraved frontispiece is of the Troy Female Seminary, a.k.a. The Emma Willard School, the first school of higher education for women. The engraver is not known but the drawing upon which it is based was by “Miss Lee.”

•  American Imprints 20661.   Publisher's green cloth, printed paper spine label; cloth bubbling and label a bit rubbed. Frontispiece offset to title-page, text Irregularly foxed and browned; a Very Good copy.  (37008)

The present work (self-identified as the “twentieth edition from the twelfth London edition, improved and enlarged”) was written under one of Phillips' noms de plume (the Rev. David Blair) and it is a good exposition ofterms in physics (and more) as used and understood at the beginning of the 19th century. (Even “gravity” is evenhandedly treated.) First published in London in 1807, its first American edition was printed in 1809.

The illustrations are in-text in their appropriate places. The frontispiece shows the phases of the moon.

Provenance:  Wooden ownership stamps of Platt Buel of Windsor, NY (19th century), and also his calligraphic stencil.

•  Not in American Imprints.   Publisher's plain sheep over pasteboards. Scattered foxing and staining. A solid, decent copy.  (37212)

There are two illustrations with captions per page. Some of the engravings are reworkings of illustrations that had appeared previously (e.g., in The Wonderful Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Albany, 1810; Mother Goose's Melody, Worcester, 1794); others are entirely original to this production.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 11163 & 26465; Rosenbach, Children, 466; Welch 993.   Original yellow stiff wrappers, splitting along the spine. Small chip missing from the top of the title-page. The impressions are various, with some quite faint and others very bright and crisp. A good copy.  (36385)

No copies found via WorldCat or COPAC.

•  Removed from a bound volume; now in modern wrappers. Old foliation neatly inked in upper outer corners; clean, with wide margins.  (28222)

Provenance:  Title-page with “M.S. [or possibly “A.S.”) Hubbard printed, in old ink, at top.

Owner's modification: This edition of this work was issued in “shingle boards” with a leather shelfback and blue paper over the boards. An early owner has covered the spine and outside of the boards with a piece of polychrome paper that its now so faded that its original colors are not clearly determinable — though the pattern was apparently(?) floral!

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 35424; Rosenbach, Children, 531; Heartman 445.   Publisher's binding, modified as above, some of the later paper flaked off especially from spine; as with most recorded copies, the first and last leaf are pasted to the appropriate boards of the binding. Small area of worming to inside of front board with loss of two words (“blesses them”) of caption of the frontispiece, and evidence of a onetime paper adherence to plate; part of image of last leaf (pasted to inside of rear board) abraded or torn off. Pages age-toned and with a few stains. A far better than average copy, given the usual state of these much-used schoolbooks.  (36829)

education

•  NSTC 2P27024. On Prinsep, see: DNB. Removed from a nonce volume. Lightly age-toned. Traces of soiling and small inked numeral on title-page. A few instances of pencilled sidelining.  (11186)

Binding/Provenance: Prize binding of contemporary vellum, covers framed and panelled in gilt rolls with gilt-stamped corner fleurons and gilt central vignette with the crest of the city of Amsterdam, spine with gilt-ruled raised bands and gilt-stamped decorations in compartments. The partially printed, partially inscribed, bound-in prize certificate reads “Ingenuo magnaeque spei adolescenti, Henrico Gerteler propter insignes in artibus humanioribus progessus, in classe tertia . . . Quod testor R. v. Ommeren [/] Gymnasii publici Amstelaedamensis Rector,” dated 1791.

•  Brunet, IV, 905; Dibdin, I, 385–86; Graesse, V, 460; Sandys, II, 455; Schweiger, II, 831. Binding as above, vellum slightly darkened, lacking ties; spine with gilt dimmed and traces of a now-absent label and inked call number at foot of spine. Lower edges with institutional rubber-stamp; title-page with shadow of a pencilled numeral. Front free endpaper with paper adhesions from a now-absent bookplate; back pastedown with rubber-stamp and small adhesion. Pages clean save for offsetting to upper margins of a few, from a laid-in slip.  (20594)

Provenance:  Front pastedown with inked inscription: “Duchess of Somerset [/] 1875" (presumably Margaret Shaw-Stewart Seymour, widow of the 11th Duke of Somerset, d. 1880). Most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Publisher's red cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title, front cover with gilt-stamped oval medallion title frame, back cover with gilt-stamped urn and flowers vignette; spine sunned with cloth chipping at joints and frayed at extremities. All edges gilt. Title-page with small portion of outer edge repaired some time ago. Mild age-toning and offsetting around guard tissues; last few leaves foxed. An attractive (if somewhat alarming) production.  (37890)

The volume is illustrated with woodcut arms on the verso of the second title-page and bears many woodcut initials and tailpieces throughout This copy retains Ortuño's engraved frontispiece (often missing) of St. Francis.

Binding:  A very interesting contemporary Mexican sprinkled calf binding, probably by a “provincial” binder. Covers with a single gilt-roll border having a modest corner device in each corner, that tool reused to form a four-part center design on each cover; same gilt-roll used on spine to accent the slightly raised bands and form spine compartments, one of these compartments with a spine-label and one having the covers' corner device gilt-tooled at its center. Board edges also with a gilt-roll design; all edges green. Highly unusual endpapers of a pattern in blue and red resembling images of strings in string theory: This is the first time we have ever seen this pattern.

•  Garcia Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 56; Viñaza 341; H. de León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 2286; Palau 269110; Medina, Mexico, 4500; DeBacker-Sommervogel, VI, 210–211; Sabin 71488; Leclerc 2334; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 2891.   Binding as above, in good condition; light offsetting from it to early and late leaves. A few small areas of discoloration where candle wax spilled on a page, and a bit of other light toning; p. 135 with “Per Omnia Secula Seculorum” neatly written in bottom margin. Very good.  (34611)

•  NSTC 2R11677; Lowndes 2099; Hugo, The Bewick Collector, 434.   Contemporary half dark green morocco with red marbled paper sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; some rubbing and with a bit of green discoloration to paper of front cover. Minor offsetting to frontispiece and title-page; mild to moderate foxing in first third of volume and to last few pages.  (21934)

•  Brunet, IV, 1224; Cohen, Guide de l’amateur de livres à gravures du XVIIIe siecle, 510–11; Lewine, Bibliography of eighteenth century art and illustrated books, 252.   Later quarter oxblood morocco and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title, gilt-ruled raised bands, and gilt-stamped compartment decorations; light wear to paper. Frontispiece mounted some time ago, title-page with short tear from lower margin, repaired; pages age-toned, with foxing and soiling/staining in various degrees throughout; despite flaws, a charmer. Uncut copy.  (29322)

Provenance:  From the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Rosenbach, Children's, 603; Shoemaker 5091.   Publisher's plain salmon-colored paper over light paste boards. Some plates browned as in all copies; glue stains showing through frontispiece. A few leaves mildly foxed. A nice book, a charming book.  (38470)

Garrison and Morton say of the first edition in English: “Sir Frederick Still considered this work 'the most progressive which had yet been written;' it gave an impetus to research which influenced the future course of paediatrics.”

Translator Murray (1740–91) was a Swedish student of Linnaeus and later a professor of botany and medicine at Göttingen.

Provenance:  Bookplate of Adamus Elias Schmidt, dated 1784.  Early 19th-century signature of a Philadelphia doctor (erased) at top of title-page.

•  G&M 6323.   Contemporary half calf, well worn: leather dry and gone to red with joint leather lost, cords holding, paper of covers worn through to boards in some places. Text with age-toning. Not a pretty copy but complete, and solid for now. Housed in a red cloth clamshell case.  (22256)

Rosenbach was the leading bookseller in America during the first half of the 20th century, helping to form the collections of Huntington, Folger, Widener, Doheny, Bell, Lilly, Clements, and many others. His personal collecting included American Judaica and Early American children's books. This is the highly illustrated and very bibliographically detailed catalogue of his personal collection of the latter. The collection was donated to the Free Library of Philadelphia.

The introduction is by A.E. Newton, Rosenbach's friend and customer, and a man whose own books on the joys of collecting helped fuel the fashion for it in the 1920s and 30s.

•  Blue pigskin, embossed in black on covers with an early American design; rebacked in plain blue morocco; abraded joints nicely refurbished. In the original black cloth slipcase but without the paper label. A good+ copy.  (34040)

•  Two Decades of Hamady & the Perishable Press, 90.   Publisher's paper wrappers, front wrapper with title printed in off-white. Crisp and clean.  (30903)

This letter to Mrs. Cowper (née Georgianna Tollemache) colorfully, vividly, and indulgently describes the energetic merrymaking of those girls who have not gone home for Christmas holiday. There are about 14 or 15 of them and on the wet day before that of the letter they played at noisy “hide & seek all day” in the enormous building: “The house has about three quarters of a mile of up and down corridors” and presently there are “seven or eight dozen empty rooms” because of the absent girls. As per our caption, he also writes in detail about teaching songs and dances to his charges.

On a personal note, he will go and have dinner with the Cowpers on Monday, he promises.

The text of the letter was published from the Cook and Wedderburn transcripts in the Bodleian Library (The Winnington Letters, ed. by Van Akin Burd, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1969; pp. 531–32). There are two small differences in the original that are not found in the printed version.

Provenance:  In the stock of Thomas H. Telford, an antiques and book dealer; sold in 1933 to Mrs. W.S. Bowen of Westfield, N.J.

•  Written on Winnington embossed stationery. Not the easiest hand to read but clearer than not. Old folds, fore-edges a little crumpled, short fold tears. Overall very good.  (34781)

This is the second edition, following the (scarce) first of 1852; the front cover differs from the title-page in giving the publication information as Chicago.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with several early pencilled inscriptions, including one reading “To Vestilla from W.B. Lear, July 13th 1857.” A folded section from a smaller hymnal is laid in.

•  Publisher's quarter sheep and printed paper–covered boards; binding darkened and rubbed, front joint starting from head, front cover creased. Front free endpaper partially excised and back free endpaper lacking; front pastedown with inscriptions as above, back pastedown with early inked annotations and numerals. First three leaves with central tear affecting several words. Laid-in hymnal pages with upper edges chewed. Moderate foxing and intermittent waterstaining; some corners dog-eared. Interesting for its graphically appealing cover and the array of its “juvenile” repertoire choices.  (30255)

The outer binding is red textured cloth with the front cover stamped in black and gilt, and the interior front cover sample for the children’s version is a different red textured cloth stamped in black. The leaves for subscribers’information are unused.

•  Not in Arbour. Publisher’s cloth as described above, gently worn with corners rubbed and small scrape to front cover. Interior clean.  (6954)

•  Shoemaker 6710. Publisher's sheep. Abrasions to covers and spine, with pieces of leather flaked off; joints abraded. Foxing. Tear to rear free endpaper. Bookplate on front pastedown.  (1078)

WorldCat locates only one holding of this item, in Germany.

Provenance:  Contemporary neat inked ownership signature of Harriet Verner at top of title-page; her pencil note on front free endpaper “Mrs. Verner Aix la Chapell, July 1834.” Most recently the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Publisher's quarter mauve paper and marbled paper–covered sides, housed in later folding marbled paper–covered case with gilt-stamped black cloth spine, the whole in a marbled paper–covered slipcase; binding rubbed, spine sunned, joints very tender, slipcase darkened. Frontispiece recto with pencilled gift inscription dated 1834, title-page with early inked ownership inscription as noted. Last two plates have had their intended chapter locations switched in binding. Pages clean — the little reader who owned this must have been very respectful.  (38649)

Mrs. Sherwood (Mary Martha Sherwood, 1775–1851) was a beloved, prolific children's book author.

Searches of NUC Pre-1956, WorldCat, and Shoemaker locatejust four copies.

Provenance:  Marcus Fay, 19th-century ownership inscription in ink on front wrapper. Later in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Shoemaker 10261. For Mrs. Sherwood's works, see: F.J.H. Darton, Life and times of Mrs. Sherwood; and M.N. Cutt, Mrs. Sherwood and her books for children.   Original green printed wrappers respined with cloth tape obscuring part of the text of the back wrapper; ex-library with rubber-stamps to inside of front wrapper and lower margins of first and final pages (not title). Light to moderate foxing.  (38485)

The text is charmingly illustrated with numerouswood engravings by Alexander Anderson, made for Samuel Wood in New York between 1813 and 1835. “All were used variously in Massachusetts by Elisha Turner in Northampton and by Edward Livermore in Worcester, before they were acquired by Merriam & Moore. None of the cuts relates directly to the text. The book is illustrated by one engraving that is not by Anderson” (Pomeroy).

Provenance:  From the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Pomeroy, Alexander Anderson, 2214; Hamilton, Early American Book Illustrators, 348; Cutt, Mrs. Sherwood and Her Books for Children, p. 137, G4.   Original printed paper wrappers in light pink, imprint on front and publisher's advertisement on rear as above. Wrappers faded and dust-soiled with chip to rear lower corner; foxing and light old dampstaining throughout, notable but far from nasty.  (38475)

Publisher's advertisement on back wrapper for “penny books printed and sold by J. Kendrew.”

Provenance:  From the children's book collection of Albert A. Howard, sans indicia.

•  In printed yellow paper wrappers; removed from a nonce volume. Frontispiece and last leaf mounted on inside of covers as issued; a clean, nice copy.  (38467)