Vintage Children's Books

What to collect

To try to describe collecting vintage children's books in one short work is far from easy. The Spectrum is vast. There are Fable books and Chap Books, Natural History, Fairy Stories, Adventure Stories, Pop ups and movables, with Victorian Bindings and Alphabet Books amongst the most popular. These have been illustrated by such great artists as William Blake, Cruikshank, Richard Doyle, Walter Crane, Randolph Caldecott, Kate Greenaway, Ardizzone, Sendak and a host of lesser known names. In fact, some books like “Alice in Wonderland”, “Peter Pan” or a “Child's Garden Book of Verses” have inspired so many artists, that collecting a the single title can prove a fruitful basis of a collection, with each pictured by a different artist. Collectors of Educational Books & Alphabet readers are not confined to the beginnings of Children Publishing, for more modern works are still been produced. At the start of her career even Enid Blyton's work was mostly educational. If you prefer a broader field of collecting why not try to find a book for each year. Start backwards from The Hobbit 1937; Winnie the Pooh for 1926; Wind in the Willows for 1911; then fill in the remaining years. You will soon have acquired a collection that will show the development and history of Illustrated Children Books.

We must remember though, that the collector of children's books has a much harder job of it, than say a 'Modern First'' collector in finding that "Mint" book. The really popular titles are often described as "well loved", having only just survived the trials and tribulations of the nursery intact. So from the outset you must decide whether you are looking for a good example for your collection that you can thumb and read or that pristine example to be locked away in your humidified collector's cabinet, where it gains value but no dust or memories. Most beginners are content with one copy until a better one comes along. This approach will need self discipline, for as each new edition you find will have some slight intrinsic difference that will make you loathe to part with the previous one and so you collection will expand exponentially.

Most collectors start with the work of one illustrator or author, usually a much loved picture to a forgotten story in the book that you cannot quite remember from your childhood. Perhaps it is not even important that you cannot even remember the name of the person that wrote the story, just that the essence of the book remains with you as a cherished memory. So, many quests begin.

 

 

 

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