Public Domain

Forgotten Books Of The American Nursery A History Of The Develo

A shelf full of books belonging to the American children of colonial times and of the early days of the Republic presents a strangely unfamiliar and curious appearance. If chronologically placed, the earliest coverless chap-books are hardly noticeable next to their immediate s...

Chapters

15. Chapter 15

It is customary to refer to the early writings of Washington Irving as works that marked the time when literature pure and simple developed in America. Such writing as had hithe...

13. Chapter 13

On the 23d of December, 1823, there appeared anonymously in the "Troy (New York) Sentinel," a Christmas ballad entitled "A Visit from St. Nicholas." This rhymed story of Santa C...

2. Chapter 2

A shelf full of books belonging to the American children of colonial times and of the early days of the Republic presents a strangely unfamiliar and curious appearance. If chron...

6. Chapter 6

In the middle of the eighteenth century Thursdays were red-letter days for the residents of the Quaker town of Philadelphia. On that day Thomas Bradford sent forth from the "Sig...

4. Chapter 4

The vast horde of story-books so constantly poured into modern nurseries makes it difficult to realize that the library of the early colonial child consisted of such books as ha...

11. Chapter 11

Any attempt to trace the slow development of the American child's story of the nineteenth century must inevitably be made through the school-books written during the previous on...

9. Chapter 9

The autograph of Eben Holt makes the contents of the magazine ludicrous as subjects of interest to a boy But having nothing better, Eben most surely read it from cover to cover.

8. Chapter 8

When John Mein was forced to close his London Book-Store in Boston and to return to England in 1770, the children of that vicinity had need to cherish their six-penny books with...

14. Chapter 14

Old story-books! old story-books! we owe you much, old friends, Bright-coloured threads in Memory's warp, of which Death holds the ends. Who can forget? Who can spurn the minist...

12. Chapter 12

7. Chapter 7

5. Chapter 5

3. Chapter 3

1. Chapter 1

10. Chapter 10