Pitts printed a penny edition of Goody Two-Shoes (c. 1815). His farthing books include Simple Simon and other nursery rhymes.
John Evans, another Seven Dials printer, also published a farthing series including Dick Whittington, Cock Robin and Mother Hubbard. (See Edwin Pearson’s Banbury Chap-books, etc., 1890.)
IV
Armand Berquin was born in France in 1749. He refused an appointment as tutor to the son of Louis XVI. Towards the end of his life he was denounced as a Girondist, and driven into exile. He died in 1791.
Mr. Charles Welsh gives a most interesting account of him in his introduction to the reprint of The Looking-Glass for the Mind, published by Griffith, Farran, Okeden and Welsh, 1885.
Mrs. Pilkington, writing “on the Plan of that celebrated work Les Veillées du Château, by Madame de Genlis”, produced Tales of the Cottage; or Stories Novel and Amusing for Young Persons, printed for Vernor & Hood in the Poultry, and sold by E. Newbery, 1799.
She was the wife of a naval doctor, and became governess to a family of orphans, for whom she wrote. Other books published for her by E. Newbery include Biography for Boys, 1808; Biography for Girls, 1809; Marvellous Adventures; or the Vicissitudes of a Cat, and a translation (abridged) of Marmontel’s Contes Moraux.