BE MERRY AND WISE: ORIGINS OF CHILDREN'S BOOK PUBLISHING IN ENGLAND, 1650-1850
by Alderson, Brian & Felix de Marez Oyens
- Used
- Condition
- See description
- ISBN 10
- 1584561807
- ISBN 13
- 9781584561804
- Seller
-
New Castle, Delaware, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
When was it that someone decided that books might be written and published for child readers? It's fair to say that some kinds of text-alphabets, fables, the Lord's Prayer, may have been seen as fundamental to the process of learning to read from the beginning of book making, but when did children come to be seen as a readership for whom special provision should be made? The child as the audience for books in the English language is the subject of this bibliographical study, which had its origins in an exhibition held at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. From this beginning, Felix de Marez Oyens and Brian Alderson have compiled Be Merry and Wise and shown how certain creative talents, driven by a sense of purpose, or a wish to make some money, attempted to appeal directly to children, and how the publishing industry came to realize that this audience might prove to constitute a profitable market.
In conducting their survey, which is centered upon the books themselves, mostly drawn from the holdings of the Morgan Library, the authors not only plot the chronological development of children's book publishing from almost random beginnings to the diversity of the early Victorian period, they also show how publishers adapted their trade methods to exploit this new market. Sweetness and light did not prevail everywhere, but, even in some of the most forbidding examples presented here, there was a commercial optimism that both merriment and wisdom might be happily combined, within the pages of children's literature. Co-published with the Pierpont Morgan Library, The Bibliographical Society of America, and The British Library. From the reference library of Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts with their bookplate included.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Oak Knoll Books/Oak Knoll Press (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 138439
- Title
- BE MERRY AND WISE: ORIGINS OF CHILDREN'S BOOK PUBLISHING IN ENGLAND, 1650-1850
- Author
- Alderson, Brian & Felix de Marez Oyens
- Illustrator
- Children's books
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover, dust jacket
- Book Condition
- Used
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN 10
- 1584561807
- ISBN 13
- 9781584561804
- Publisher
- Oak Knoll Press & The British Library
- Place of Publication
- New Castle, Delaware
- Date Published
- 2006
Terms of Sale
Oak Knoll Books/Oak Knoll Press
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About the Seller
Oak Knoll Books/Oak Knoll Press
About Oak Knoll Books/Oak Knoll Press
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Bookplate
- Highly sought after by some collectors, a book plate is an inscribed or decorative device that identifies the owner, or former...
- Fair
- is a worn book that has complete text pages (including those with maps or plates) but may lack endpapers, half-title, etc....
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....