Last
year I purchased a copy of The
Collector’s Book of Children’s Books by Eric Quayle, a 1971 edition from
Strand Book Store in New York City. It’s
a wonderful history of children’s books.
Coming to life, through its over-sized pages were Aesop’s Fables, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Huckleberry Finn, The Jungle Book, and
Voyages of Dr. Dolittle Which childhood memory rushes back to you just at
the mention of such illuminary books?
Growing
up with books as the centerpiece of fantasy and escape may be a thing of the
past for most. Today’s child has the
Internet, television, movies, theater and a downloadable catalog of
entertainment and information that’s mind-boggling. As we look back at some of the classics for
kids, we harken back to a lost era when these books brought an ephemeral,
elusive pleasure to children.
Here are some insightful excerpts from the book:
1. "Picture-books
provide one of the most fruitful ways in which a child can increase his
knowledge of the world and extend his vocabulary to include a diverse and
exotic mixture of places and things to which he would otherwise remain a
stranger."
2. "Long
after the novels and romances of adult life have faded and been forgotten, the
simple stories and tales we read in childhood live on in our hearts. Who ever forgets The Story of the Three Bears, the tale of Jack the Giant Killer, or the plots of Rumplestiltzkin, Cinderella, or The
Wizard of Oz? The nursery rhymes and
fairy-tales we first heard in the tucked-up-in-bed security of early youth
continue to exert a fascination throughout life, the words and phrases etching
themselves in the memory for instant recall at any time or place. They colour our literary consciousness, and
are repeated as fables to the eager young listeners who re-create the image of
ourselves so many years ago. Just to
hear again the magic words Once upon a time… with all the breath-taking
anticipation they inspire, is to crowd the mind with the lost delights of
childhood and conjure up a picture of never-never land of make-believe and
fantasy. Once, a long time ago, all of
us lived there and believed it to be true.
This is the story of the little books that made us believe; and probably
brought us more happiness and peace of mind than anything we have ever read
since."
3. "Book
publishing began to develop in a way we recognize today with the appearance of
sophisticated and worldly-wise fiction for adults and books of amusement and
entertainment for children. Both these
phenomena occurred in the 1740s, the former with the appearance of the first
‘true’ novel in English, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, 4 vols. 1741-2, by
Samuel Richardson (1689-1761), a book discussed in the companion volume to this
present work; and the latter with the publication by John Newbery of his first
book for children in 1744. Brief mention
must be made of Thomas Boreman, a publisher of children’s books, who sold them
from his shop at the ‘Boot and Crown’, and from a temporary stall erected with
those of other traders within the Guildhall, London. A
Description of a Great Variety of Animals,
and Vegetables…especially for the
Entertainment of Youth, 1736, and The
Gigantick History of the two famous Giants…in Guildhall, 2 vols. 1740 shows
that he was publishing books for children before Newbery came into the field."
4. "Children
have never ceased to enjoy reading fairy tales since the first collection of
them appeared in print early in the 17th century. They were the first literature for children
to escape from the stifling toils of didacticism and were attacked and
condemned by the puritanical writes for precisely this reason. The battle between the strait-laced juvenile
tract and the fairy stories that children delighted to read extended until well
into the 1830s. By the age of Victoria,
they had been grudgingly accepted by the parents, guardians and governesses of
even the most strictly regulated children, and well-thumbed collections of the best
known tales were to be found on nursery shelves everywhere."
5. "Two
great landmarks in the annals of children’s books are more fully discussed
elsewhere in this work: but it can be
said that the appearance of Alice in
Wonderland, 1865, marked a decisive victory over the now scattered
exponents of moral earnestness and that the battle was finally won with the
publication of Stevenson’s Treasure
Island in 1883. Children could
identify themselves with the Jim Hawkins of the apple-barrel perhaps more
easily than Alice in her dream-world
of fantasy and make-believe, but both were rational human beings who became as
easily excited, bored, irritated and bad-tempered as the boy or girl who turned
the pages of their books."
A.B.C. for
Children
Aesop’s Fables
Alice’s Adventures
in Wonderland
Adventures of
Baron Munchausen
Andresen’s Fairy
Tales
Basket of Flowers
Black Beauty
Books for the
Bairns
Boy’s Country Book
Boy’s Own Annual
Butterfly’s Ball
Children of the
New Forest
Child’s Garden of
Verses
Christie’s Old
Organ
Christopher
Robin’s books
Coral Island
Daisy Chain
Elementarwerke fur
die Jugend und ihre Freunde
Emil and the
Detectives
Eric or Little by
Little
Fabulous Histories
Fairy Books, by
Andrew Lang
Girl of the
Limberlost
Girl’s Own Annual
Golliwogg books
Goody Two-Shoes
Grimm’s Fairy
Tales
Gulliver’s Travels
Helen’s Babies
Hisoires ou Contes
de Temps Passe
Historical Account
of the most celebrated Voyages
History of Babar
History of Little
Henry
History of
Sandford and Merton
History of the
Earth, and Animated Nature
History of the
Fairchild Family
Holiday House
Home Treasury of
Books
Huckleberry Finn
Hymns for Infant
Minds
In Fairyland
Island Home
Jack Harkaway
Stories
Jessica’s First
Prayer
Jungle Books
Just William
King of the Golden
River
Kunst und
Lehrbuchlein
L’ami des Enfans
Leather-Stocking
Tales
Life and
Perambulations of a Mouse
Little Lord
Fauntleroy
Little Master’s
Miscellany
Little Pretty
Pocket-Book
Little Women
Looking-Glass for
children
Martin Rattler
Masterman Ready
Ministering Children
Minor Morals for
Young People
Moonfleet
Mopsa the Fairy
Only Toys
Orbis Sensualium
Pictus
Original Poems,
for Infant Minds
Out on the Pampas
Parent’s Assistant
Peacock “at home”
Pentamerone
Peter and Wendy
Peter Parley
annuals
Peter the Whaler
Pilgrim’s Progress
Peter Rabbit books
Queechy
Railway children
Rambles of a Rat
Renowned history
of Giles Gingerbread
Rollo stories
Sandford and
Merton
Secret Garden
Stalky & Co.
Story of Little
Black Sambo
Story of Little
Henry
Story of the
Treasure Seekers
Swiss Family
Robinson
Tarzan of the Apes
Through the
Looking Glass
Tom Brown’s School
Days
Tommy Thumb’s
Pretty Song Book
Tom Sawyer
Treasure Island
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Under the Window
Voyage s of Dr.
Dolittle
Water Babies
Wide, Wide World
Wind in the
Willows
Wizard of Oz
DON”T MISS THESE!!!
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