V
Thomas Day (1748-1789) was educated at the Charter House and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He was an intimate friend of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, although he had paid his addresses in turn to Honora and Elizabeth Sneyd, afterwards the second and third Mrs. Edgeworth.
Day was a member of Dr. Darwin’s literary circle at Lichfield, and was the author of verses and political pamphlets. The third edition of his poem “The Dying Negro” was dedicated to Jean Jacques Rousseau.
The History of Prince Lee Boo (1789) is an early example of this interest in coloured races. Children’s books of the early nineteenth century include many stories of the Slave Trade and adventures of Negroes. Some of the most popular were The Adventures of Congo (1823); Mary Ann Hedge’s Samboe; or, the African Boy (1823); Radama; or, the Enlightened African (1824).
Third edition, 1759; new version in The Children’s Miscellany, 1787; Children’s chap-book in Dutch flowered boards, c. 1789: The English Hermit; or, The Adventures of Philip Quarll, “who was lately discovered by Mr. Dorrington, a Bristol Merchant, upon an uninhabited Island, where he has lived above fifty years, without any human assistance, still continues to reside and will not come away. Adorned with cuts and a Map of the Island”. London, John Marshall. Price Six Pence bound and gilt. (Inscribed “Margaret H. Haskoll, (Au. 14th, 1789).”) Other editions: 1795, 1807, 1816.
The 1807 edition, repeated in Newcastle, York and Banbury chap-books, has cuts attributed to Bewick.