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Rosalie Vrylina Halsey. Forgotten Books of the American Nursery
Forgotten Books of the American Nursery
Table of Contents
ILLUSTRATIONS
CHAPTER I
Introductory
Forgotten Books of the American Nursery
CHAPTER I
Introductory
CHAPTER II
1747–1767
CHAPTER II
1747–1767
The Play-Book in England
CHAPTER III
1750–1776
CHAPTER III
1750–1776
Newbery’s Books in America
CHAPTER IV
1776–1790
CHAPTER IV
1776–1790
Patriotic Printers and the American Newbery
CHAPTER V
1790–1800
CHAPTER V
1790–1800
The Child and his Book at the End of the Century
CHAPTER VI
1800–1825
CHAPTER VI
1800–1825
Toy-Books in the Early Nineteenth Century
CHAPTER VII
1825–1840
CHAPTER VII
1825–1840
American Writers and English Critics
Index
INDEX
Отрывок из книги
Rosalie Vrylina Halsey
A History of the Development of the American Story-Book
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The Primer, however, was not a product wholly of New England. In sixteen hundred and eighty-five there had been printed in Boston by Green, “The Protestant Tutor for Children,” a primer, a mutilated copy of which is now owned by the American Antiquarian Society. “This,” again to quote Mr. Ford, “was probably an abridged edition of a book bearing the same title, printed in London, with the expressed design of bringing up children in an aversion to Popery.” In Protestant New England the author’s purpose naturally called forth profound approbation, and in “Green’s edition of the Tutor lay the germ of the great picture alphabet of our fore-fathers.”14-* The author, Benjamin Harris, had immigrated to Boston for personal reasons, and coming in contact with the residents, saw the latent possibilities in “The Protestant Tutor.” “To make it more salable,” writes Mr. Ford in “The New England Primer,” “the school-book character was increased, while to give it an even better chance of success by an appeal to local pride it was rechristened and came forth under the now famous title of ‘The New England Primer.’ ”14-†
A careful examination of the titles contained in the first volume of Evans’s “American Bibliography” shows how exactly this infant’s primer represented the spirit of the times. This chronological list of American imprints of the first one hundred years of the colonial press is largely a record in type of the religious activity of the country, and is impressive as a witness to the obedience of the press to the law of supply and demand. With the Puritan appetite for a grim religion served in sermons upon every subject, ornamented and seasoned with supposedly apt Scriptural quotations, a demand was created for printed discourses to be read and inwardly digested at home. This demand the printers supplied. Amid such literary conditions the primer came as light food for infants’ minds, and as such was accepted by parents to impress religious ideas when teaching the alphabet.
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