[FUNERARY LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN]. A memoir of Isabella Maria L.--, who happily departed this life in the eighth year of her age

Birmingham (England): Printed for T. Groom, 1832. Fourth edition. Very good. 32mo. 32pp. With an engraved frontispiece. Original publisher's red wrappers, lettered and decorated in gilt. A trifle rubbed and marked. Early ink gift inscription inside upper wrapper (bottom corner of lower wrapper stained). DREARY JUVENILE CONDUCT OF LIFE TALE. Our colleague Tom Lintern-Mole informs us that "the narrative concerns the exceptionally intelligent and nauseatingly pious eponymous heroine, who, when stricken by a mysterious illness, remains unwaveringly devout in her final hours, gladly embracing the prospect of death and salvation. The moral is less than comforting: 'My dear young readers, do you calculate upon a long life? - look at Maria, and be taught you may die soon. Do you shrink from the gloom and coldness of the grave? - look at Maria and learn how to smile upon it. Do you wish to die peacefully? - apply to that Jesus who took the sting out of her death, and he will take it out of yours.'"

We have learned that the text of the present "Memoir" was printed in the Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle (vol. 10, March 1832, pp. 156-160, in the Obituaries section!) and the "Memoir" is signed "R" at the end. Did it precede the present chapbook? Here no author is credited, but it does contain three "Favorite Hymns of Isabella Maria" which do not appear in the Evangelical Magazine publication.

Birmingham publisher Thomas Groom specialized in children's chapbooks; imprints with bearing his name were issued from 1830 to the 1850s.

Scarce (apparently unrecorded) edition in good original state. Combined searches in COPAC, Worldcat and KVK locate only the following:
Second edition (one copy worldwide: Free Library of Philadelphia);
Third edition (one copy worldwide: Bodleian).