Vintage Children's Books
A Brief History of Children's Books.
“I do not know where to start”, said Alice.
“Oh dear. Well, start at the beginning and when you get to the end...stop. “
“Alice in Wonderland”
Even as recently as the 18th century there was very little printed material that was aimed specifically at children. Books were very expensive and in general the only reading matter that children had access to, were either the stories in their Family Bible or the often sensational and horrific stories of the Broadsides. These were so called because they were printed on one side of the sheet. Their readers could fix them up on the wall, as they were often illustrated. Sometimes a printer would produce a folded up version of these Ballad Sheets into a little pamphlet of 4, 8 or 16 pages often decorated with woodcut pictures. Not only were these sold in the bookshops but they were so cheap to produce that Pedlars could take them from town to town along with their other wares. In England these hawkers were also called “Chaps” which is an old English word for “Barter”. This is because these traders would also accept produce in exchange for their goods, from the farms they visited. So the little booklets they sold became known as “Chapbooks”
Lucky children of the 17th Century would get a chance to read the Joke & Riddle Chapbooks that became the rage at that time. There were also romances published, King Arthur and tales of other Knightly Adventures being the most popular. Children have always been attracted to words with pictures and even when Children's Books started to be produced in the 18th Century, the Chapbooks continued. Now that there were more printers working in the smaller towns, as well as the cities, competition increased, as did the number of different subjects that were covered. For the first time pamphlets appeared specially aimed at younger people. Fairy stories that parents could read to their children were among the first, all with pictures to see. Then came Collections of Nursery Rhymes, some recording the traditions of a rural class for the first time. If not for these enterprising printers, so much of our oral history would have been lost forever, especially with the ceaseless migration of workers from the land to the urban sprawl. It is also around this time that the first adaptations of popular adult stories like “Robinson Crusoe” started to appear in shorter versions especially written and edited for children to understand.
Unfortunately in chasing the profits, many of the chapbook publishers, in the face of ever increasing competition, started printing more lurid tales to amuse their readers, relying on rudeness and swearing to shock their audience. This created a backlash in the form of the many religious groups who poured large amounts of funds into producing a new genre of Chapbooks that were full of morality tales and religious stories. This was done in an effort to drive out the more “unsavoury” competition, with printers and parents being preached at by their more respectable fellow citizens. Then came the dramatic advances in printing that created the means to cheaply produce newspapers and magazines. These in turn superseded the chapbooks, that then simply faded from popularity
Many children up until the 17th Century were familiar the rough and ready tales of the chapbook such as “Robin Goodfellow and his Merry Pranks” but in 1697 a book was written that was to change children's books forever. In France, Charles Perrault was to produce a polished and refined collection of Fairy tales, which he published under his son's name and called “ Contes de ma Mere L'oye” ,which were translated into English under the title of “Mother Goose's Tales”. Showing that they could be presented in such a “novel” way sowed the seeds of future genre. This little book of tales became popular all over the world and is still been reprinted in different forms today.
In the tumultuous bustling England of 1740, a female publisher brought out some books specifically aimed at the juvenile market, and as befitting tiny hands she had them produced in miniature. The first small volume “Tom Thumb's Pretty Song Book” was a collection of pretty nursery rhymes and then shortly afterwards she published another miniature book called “ A Child's New Plaything” which was an ABC book. The novelty of their size contributed to their popularity and the historian, Thomas Boreman, brought out a set of seven small guide books to London in the same format calling them his “Gigantick Histories”. An enterprising John Newbury knew a good thing when he saw it. Adopting this amusing style he produced “A Little Penny Pocket Book”. This was ”intended for the amusement of little Master Tommy & pretty Miss Polly” and so is an early example of a book specifically printed for children. In the spirit of the “Giveaway” adopted later by Comic publishers to increase their sales, he presented a free pincushion to every girl or a ball to every boy, who bought a book from his shop. A lot of similar books followed and he can be regarded as probably the first Children's Book Publisher. He also introduced the use of Dutch flowered paper boards in the binding of his books as he wanted them to be as bright and cheerful as possible.
In these early days colour was sadly lacking from the pages. Gradually books with hand coloured pictures that were tinted in watercolour paint after the books were printed began to appear. Then around 1800 pictures were printed separately and hand coloured by an assembly line of younger workers, sometimes children. They would each sit around a table with a different colour on their brush and quickly pass the engraving amongst them, each adding a different colour in turn. These coloured engraving were then glued into the books before they left the printers. The quality of the colouring in these examples can transcend from muddy blotches to exquisite masterpieces.
The Newberry publishing firm was taken over by John Harris in 1801 and he, along with others such as the publishers Darton & Harvey, started experimenting with the design of the books. They started producing a less cluttered layout, often with a single illustration on the page above a shorter text or verse. They also found that despite the widespread belief that children liked small books, it was easier to produce better coloured illustrations on larger pages. As the books got larger in size the number of pages in the books grew less to keep the price down. Harris went on to produce an illustrated version of a poem by William Roscoe called “The Butterfly's Ball”. It's larger format with vivid colour was an instant success. As the picture was larger, the black lines of the engraving under the colouring, were less denser, making the picture appear brighter. He followed this straight away with another book, this time an illustrated version of Mrs Dorset's verse, “ The Peacock at Home”. He capitalised on his success producing a dozen more titles and so did his competitors who followed his example.
The first books had been printed from copper plates that were engraved with the picture and text. This enable a squarish format of about 5” inches. They then discovered that it was easy when printing children's books to use woodblocks, to print the illustrations and use “Type” face for the verses underneath. This enlarged the basic format to 7” X 4” inches.
These were to become the “Toy Books”, slim volumes with beautifully coloured illustrations and stories of pure childish entertainment.
So a new genre of books were born.
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