Competitors and collectors have often complained that I have frequently purchased at auction rare books that they especially desired and that I did not give them a chance. Quite true! But I have often tasted the same bitter medicine myself. I recall, very vividly, a certain day in May 1913, when the Crane sale was being held in New York and there was a tiny Royal Primer included among the items, which I felt belonged to my collection of children’s books. Printed in Philadelphia in 1753 by James Chattin, this Royal Primer was the only one of its kind in existence. In the good old days when George D. Smith was czar of the auction rooms, all other dealers and collectors were under a terrific strain the moment he appeared. We knew it was almost hopeless to bid against him.
At that time Mr. Smith represented Mr. Henry E. Huntington. He entered the auction room armed with as many unlimited bids as a porcupine has quills. Mr. Smith seemed to take a peculiar delight in running up bids on the little juvenile books I craved. And I had set my heart on the Royal Primer from the moment it was shown to the audience—a beautiful copy in its original sheep cover. I was prepared to pay as high as $200 for it, but as I watched Smith, the very shadow and auction voice of Mr. Huntington himself, I had serious doubts of obtaining it. The bidding started at ten dollars. Imagine my emotion when it rose rapidly to $1000! I felt a complete bankrupt. It was no small task to bid against this octopus of the game, and when the Royal Primer was finally mine at the absurdly high sum of $1225 I arose quickly and went out for air.
The contents of the primers are generally the same. They begin with a rhymed alphabet with illustrations, words, and syllables for spelling lessons. Many of the earliest ones contain verses which were supposed to have been written by the English martyr, John Rogers, just before his execution, for the benefit of his “nine small children, and one at the breast.” Mrs. Rogers and the children are depicted calmly watching the head of the family at the stake as he is about to go up in flames. Their little faces are like so many cranberries.
Later primers are equally amusing, sometimes with frontispieces of George III, and others have dubious likenesses of Our President. Not even the mother of George Washington could have recognized her boy’s features in these crude pictures. But the primers were very popular, and the Puritans continued to issue them. The Beauties of the Primer was followed by the Primer Improved and the Progressive Primer, a more elaborate departure, which boasts colored illustrations.
It was during the early part of the eighteenth century that the Puritan taste began to broaden a bit. In addition to the early primers and catechisms, children were encouraged to read the Holy Bible in verse and semireligious books which had come into fashion. A friend—Mr. Thomas E. Streeter, of New York, a most discriminating collector—found in a volume of pamphlets, Some Excellent Verses for the Education of Youth, to which is added Verses for Little Children, by a Friend, Boston, printed by Bartholomew Green, 1708. It was the only copy extant, having miraculously escaped the rough usage of tiny hands. I despaired of obtaining it, when one day Mr. Streeter generously sent it to me with his compliments. Here is a sample of the Biblical verse as it was written to impress the small reader. Imagine the youth of New England, born with all the lively desires of a modern child, spending a Sunday afternoon memorizing such rhythms as:—
Though I am Young, yet I may Die,
And hasten to Eternity.
Another melancholy book of poetry for children was printed in 1740 in New Haven by T. Green. My copy is the only one known to-day. Its pleasant beginning must have charmed the small reader; thus: “Children, you must die in a short time. You will soon go to a Heaven of Joy or a burning Hell.” There are seven poems in each. The author cannot resist depicting a lugubrious future. Imagine your own child memorizing this sample, called “The Play”:—
Now from School I haste away,
And joyful rush along to play;