Forgotten Books of the American Nursery Part 8

Your affectionate Uncle B. FRANKLIN.

JONA. WILLIAMS, ESQ.

Franklin's reference to the Philadelphia manner of binding toy-books in marbled paper indicates that this home-made product was already displacing the attractive imported gilt embossed and parti-colored covers used by Thomas, who seems never to have adopted this ugly dress for his juvenile publications. As the demand for his wares increased, Thomas set up other volumes from Newbery's stock, until by seventeen hundred and eighty-seven he had reproduced practically every item for his increasing trade. It was his custom to include in many of these books a Catalogue of the various tales for sale, and in "The Picture Exhibition" we find a list of fifty-two stories to be sold for prices varying from six pence to a shilling and a half.

These books may be divided into several cla.s.ses, all imitations of the English adult literature then in vogue. The alphabets and primers, such as the "Little Lottery Book," "Christmas Box," and "Tom Thumb's Play-thing," are outside the limits of the present subject, since they were written primarily to instruct; and while it is often difficult to draw the line where amus.e.m.e.nt begins and instruction sinks to the background, the t.i.tle-pages can usually be taken as evidence at least of the author's intention. These other books, however, fall naturally under the heads of jest and puzzle books, nature stories, fables, rhymes, novels, and stories--all prototypes of the nursery literature of to-day.

The jest and joke books published by Thomas numbered, as far as is known to the writer, only five. Their t.i.tles seem to offer a feast of fun unfulfilled by the contents. "Be Merry & Wise, or the Cream of the Jests and the Marrow of Maxims," by Tommy Trapwit, contained concentrated extracts of wisdom, and jokes such as were current among adults. The children for whom they were meant were accustomed to nothing more facetious than the following jest: "An arch wag said, _Taylors_ were like _Woodc.o.c.ks_ for they got their substance by their long bills."

Perhaps they understood also the point in this: "A certain lord had a termagant wife, and at the same time a chaplain that was a tolerable poet, whom his lordship desired to write a copy of verses upon a shrew.

I can't imagine, said the chaplain, why your lordship should want a copy, who has so good an original." Other witticisms are not quotable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A page from a Catalogue of Children's Books printed by Isaiah Thomas_]

Conundrums played their part in the eighteenth century juvenile life, much as they do to-day. These were to be found in "A Bag of Nuts ready Cracked," and "The Big and Little Puzzling Caps." "Food for the Mind"

was the solemn t.i.tle of another riddle-book, whose conundrums are very serious matters. Riddle XIV of the "Puzzling Cap" is typical of its rather dreary contents:

"There was a man bespoke a thing, Which when the maker home did bring, This same maker did refuse it; He who bespoke it did not use it And he who had it did not know Whether he had it, yea or no."

This was a nut also "ready cracked" by the answer reproduced in the ill.u.s.tration.

Nature stories were attempted under the t.i.tles of "The Natural History of Four Footed Beasts," "Jacky Dandy's Delight; or the History of Birds and Beasts in Verse and Prose," "Mr. Telltruth's Natural History of Birds," and "Tommy Trip's History of Beasts and Birds." All these were written after Oliver Goldsmith's "Animated Nature" had won its way into great popularity. As a consequence of the favorable impression this book had made, Goldsmith is supposed to have been asked by Newbery to try his hand upon a juvenile natural history.

Possibly it was as a result of Newbery's request that we have the anonymous "Jacky Dandy's Delight" and "Tommy Trip's History of Beasts and Birds." The former appears to be a good example of Goldsmith's facility for amusing himself when doing hack-work for Newbery. How like Goldsmith's manner is this description of a monkey:

"The monkey mischievous Like a naughty boy looks; Who plagues all his friends, And regards not his books.

"He is an active, pert, busy animal, who mimicks human actions so well that some think him rational. The Indians say, he can speak if he pleases, but will not lest he should be set to work. Herein he resembles those naughty little boys who will not learn A, lest they should be obliged to learn B, too. He is a native of warm countries, and a useless beast in this part of the world; so I shall leave him to speak of another that is more bulky, and comes from cold countries: I mean the Bear."

To poke fun in an offhand manner at little boys and girls seemed to have been the only conception of humor to be found in the children's books of the period, if we except the "Jests" and the attempts made in a ponderous manner on the t.i.tle-pages. The t.i.tle of "The Picture Exhibition; containing the Original Drawings of Eighteen Disciples....

Published under the Inspection of Mr. Peter Paul Rubens,..." is evidently one of Newbery's efforts to be facetious. To the author, the pretence that the pictures were by "Disciples of Peter Paul Rubens"

evidently conveyed the same idea of wit that "Punch" has at times represented to others of a later century.

Fables have always been a mine of interest to young folks, and were interspersed liberally with all moral tales, but "Entertaining Fables"

bears upon its t.i.tle-page a suggestion that the children's old friend, "Aesop," appeared in a new dress.

Another series of books contained the much abridged novels written for the older people. "Peregrine Pickle" and "Roderick Random" were both reprinted by Isaiah Thomas as early as seventeen hundred and eighty-eight. These tales of adventure seem to have had their small reflections in such stories as "The Adventures of a Pincushion," and "The Adventures of a Peg-top," by Dorothy Kilner, an Englishwoman.

Mention has already been made of "Pamela" and "Clarissa" in condensed form. These were books of over two hundred pages; but most of the toy-books were limited to less than one hundred. A remarkable instance of the pith of a long plot put into small compa.s.s was "The History of Tom Jones." A dog-eared copy of such an edition of "Tom Jones" is still in existence. Its flowery Dutch binding covers only thirty-one pages, four inches long, with a frontispiece and five wood-cut ill.u.s.trations.

In so small a s.p.a.ce no detailed account of the life of the hero is to be expected; nevertheless, the first paragraph introduces Tom as no ordinary foundling. Mr. Allworthy finds the infant in his bed one evening and rings up his housekeeper Mrs. Deborah Wilkins. "She being a strict observer of decency was exceedingly alarmed, on entering her master's room, to find him undressed, but more so on his presenting her with the child, which he ordered immediately to be taken care of." The story proceeds--with little punctuation to enable the reader to take breath--to tell how the infant is named, and how Mr. Allworthy's nephew, Master Bilfil, is also brought under that generous and respectable gentleman's protection. Tommy turned out "good," as Mr. Allworthy had hoped when he a.s.sumed charge of him; and therefore eventually inherited riches and gained the hand of Miss Sophia Western, with whom he rode about the country in their "Coach and Six."

Of the stories in this juvenile library, the names, at least, of "Giles Gingerbread," "Little King Pippin," and "Goody Two-Shoes" have been handed down through various generations. One hundred years ago every child knew that "Little King Pippin" attained his glorious end by attention to his books in the beginning of his career; that "Giles Gingerbread" first learned his alphabet from gingerbread letters, and later obtained the patronage of a fine gentleman by spelling "apple-pye"

correctly. Thus did his digestion prove of material a.s.sistance in mental gymnastics.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Ill.u.s.tration of Riddle XIV in "The Puzzling-Cap"_]

But the nursery favorite was undoubtedly "Margery, or Little Goody Two-Shoes." She was introduced to the reader in her "state of rags and care," from which she gradually emerged in the chapters ent.i.tled, "How and about Little Margery and her Brother;" "How Little Margery obtained the name of Goody Two-Shoes;" "How she became a Tutoress" to the farmers' families in which she taught spelling by a game; and how they all sang the "Cuz's Chorus" in the intervals between the spelling lesson and the composition of sentences like this: "I pray G.o.d to bless the whole country, and all our friends and all our enemies." Like the usual heroine of eighteenth century fiction, she married a t.i.tle, and as Lady Jones was the Lady Bountiful of the district. From these tales it is clear that piety as the chief end of the story-book child has been succeeded by learning as the desideratum; yet morality is still pushed into evidence, and the American mother undoubtedly translated the ethical sign-boards along the progress of the tale into Biblical admonitions.

All the books were didactic in the extreme. A series of four, called "The Mother's," "Father's," "Sister's," and "Brother's Gifts," is a good example of this didactic method of story-telling. "The Father's Gift"

has lessons in spelling preceded by these lines:

"Let me not join with those in Play, Who fibs and stories tell, I with my Book will spend the Day, And not with such Boys dwell.

For one rude Boy will spoil a score As I have oft been told; And one bad sheep, in Time, is sure To injure all the Fold."

"The Mother's Gift" was confined largely to the same instructive field, but had one or two stories which conformed to the sentiment of the author of "The Adventures of a Pincushion," who stated her motive to be "That of providing the young reader with a few pages which should be innocent of corrupting if they did not amuse."

"The Brother's" and "Sister's Gifts," however, adopt a different plan of instruction. In "The Brother's Gift" we find a brother solicitous concerning his sister's education: "Miss Kitty Bland was apt, forward and headstrong; and had it not been for the care of her brother, Billy, would have probably witnessed all the disadvantages of a modern education"!

Upon Kitty's return from boarding-school, "she could neither read, nor sew, nor write grammatically, dancing stiff and awkward, her musick inelegant, and everything she did bordered strongly on affectation." Here was a large field for reformation for Billy to effect. He had no doubts as to what method to pursue. She was desired to make him twelve shirts, and when the first one was presented to him, "he was astonished to find her lacking in so useful a female accomplishment." Exemplary conversation produced such results that the rest of the garments were satisfactory to the critical Billy, who, "as a mark of approbation made her a present of a fine pair of stays."

"The Sister's Gift" presents an opposite picture. In this case it is Master Courtley who, a "youth of Folly and Idleness," received large doses of advice from his sister. This counsel was so efficient with Billy's sensitive nature that before the story ends, "he wept bitterly, and declared to his sister that she had painted the enormity of his vices in such striking colors, that they shocked him in the greatest degree; and promised ever after to be as remarkable for generosity, compa.s.sion and every other virtue as he had hitherto been for cruelty, forwardness and ill-nature." Virtue in this instance was its own reward, as Billy received no gift in recognition of his changed habits.

To the modern lover of children such tales seem strangely ill-suited to the childish mind, losing, as they do, all tenderness in the effort of the authors (so often confided to parents in the preface) "to express their sentiments with propriety." Such criticism of the style and matter of these early attempts to write for little people was probably not made by either infant or adult readers of that old-time public. The children read what was placed before them as intellectual food, plain and sweetened, as unconcernedly as they ate the food upon their plates at meal-time. That their own language was the formal one of the period is shown by such letters as the following one from Mary Wilder, who had just read "The Mother's Gift:"

Lancaster, October 9th, 1789.

HOND. MADM:

Your goodness to me I cannot express. My mind is continually crowded with your kindness. If your goodness could be rewarded, I hope G.o.d will repay you. If you remember, some time ago I read a story in "The Mother's Gift," but I hope I shall never resemble Miss Gonson.

O Dear! What a thing it is to disobey one's parents. I have one of the best Masters. He gave me a sheet of paper this morning. I hope Uncle Flagg will come up. I am quite tired of looking for Betsy, but I hope she will come. When school is done keeping, I shall come to Sudbury. What a fine book Mrs. Chapone's Letters is: My time grows short and I must make my letter short.

Your dutiful daughter, P.W.

Nursery rhymes and jingles of these present days have all descended from song-books of the eighteenth century, ent.i.tled "Little Robin Red Breast," "A Poetical Description of Song Birds," "Tommy Thumb's Song-Book," and the famous "Melodies of Mother Goose," whose name is happily not yet relegated to the days of long ago. Two extracts from the "Poetical Description of Song Birds" will be sufficient to show how foreign to the birds familiar to American children were the descriptions:

THE BULLFINCH

This lovely bird is charming to the sight: The back is glossy blue, the belly white, A jetty black shines on his neck and head; His breast is flaming with a beauteous red.

THE TWITE

Green like the Linnet it appears to sight, And like the Linnet sings from morn till night.

A reddish spot upon his rump is seen, Short is his bill, his feathers always clean: When other singing birds are dull or nice, To sing again the merry Twites entice.

Reflections of the prevailing taste of grown people for biography are suggested in three little books, of two of which the author was Mrs.

Pilkington, who had already written several successful stories for young ladies. Her "Biography for Girls" contains various novelettes, in each of which the heroine lives the conventional life and dies the conventional death of the period, and receives a laudatory epitaph. They are remarkable only as being devoid of any interest. Her "Biography for Boys" does not appear to have attained the same popularity as that for girls. A third book, "The Juvenile Biographers," containing the "Lives of Little Masters and Misses," is representative of the changes made in many books by the printer to cater to that pride in the young Republic so manifest in all local literary productions. In one biography we note a Representative to the Ma.s.sachusetts a.s.sembly:

"As Master Sammy had always been a very sober and careful child, and very attentive to his Books, it is no wonder that he proved, in the End, to be an excellent Scholar.

"Accordingly, when he had reached the age of fourteen, Mr. William Goodall, a wealthy merchant in the city of Boston, took him into his counting house, in order to bring him up in the merchantile Way, and thereby make his Fortune.

"This was a sad Stroke to his poor Sister Nancy, who having lost both her Papa and Mama, was now likely to lose her Brother likewise; but Sammy did all he could to appease her, and a.s.sured her, that he would spend all his leisure Time with her. This he most punctually performed, and never were Brother and Sister as happy in each other's company as they were.

"Mr. William Goodall was highly satisfied with Sammy's Behaviour, and dying much about the Time that Miss Nancy was married to the Gentleman, he left all his business to Sammy, together with a large Capital to carry it on. So much is Mr. Careful esteemed (for we must now no longer call him Master Sammy) that he was chosen in the late General Election, Representative in the General Court, for one of the first Towns in New England, without the least expense to himself. We here see what are the Effects of Good Behaviour."

This adaptation of the English tale to the surroundings of the American child is often found in Thomas's reprints, and naturally, owing to his enthusiasm over the recent change in the form of government, is made wholly by political references. Therefore while the lark and the linnet still sang in songs and the cowslips were scattered throughout the nature descriptions, Master Friendly no longer rode in the Lord Mayor's coach, but was seated as a Congressman in a sedan chair, "and he looked--he looked--I do not know what he looked like, but everybody was in love with him." The engraver as well as the biographer of the recently made Representative was evidently at a loss as to his appearance, as the four dots indicating the young gentleman's features give but a blank look perhaps intended to denote amazement at his election.

The ill.u.s.trations of Thomas's toy reprints should not be overlooked. The Worcester printer seems to have rewritten the "Introduction" to "Goody Two-Shoes," and at the end he affixed a "Letter from the Printer which he desires may be inserted.

SIR: I have come with your copy, and so you may return it to the Vatican, if you please; and pray tell Mr. Angelo to brush up his cuts; that in the next edition they may give us a good impression."