In eighteen hundred and twelve, for Munroe & Francis of Boston, Dr. Anderson made after J. Thompson a set of cuts, mainly remarkable “as the chief of his few departures from the style of his favorite, Bewick.”[169-*]
The custom of not signing either text or engravings in the children’s books has made it difficult to identify writers and illustrators of juvenile literature. But some of the best engravers undoubtedly practised their art on these toy-books. Nathaniel Dearborn, who was a stationer, printer, and engraver in Boston about eighteen hundred and eleven, sometimes signed the full-page illustrations on both wood and copper, and Abel Bowen, a copper-engraver, and possibly the first wood-engraver in Boston, signed a very curious publication entitled “A Metamorphosis”—a manifold paper which in its various possible combinations transformed one figure into another in keeping with the progress of the story.
C. Gilbert, a pupil of Mason, who had introduced the art of wood-engraving in Philadelphia from Boston, engraved on wood certainly the two full-page illustrations for “A Present for a Little Girl,” printed in eighteen hundred and sixteen for a Baltimore firm, Warner & Hanna.
Adams and his pupils, Lansing and Morgan, also did work on children’s books. Adams seems to have worked under Anderson’s instruction, and after eighteen hundred and twenty-five did cuts for some books in the juvenile libraries of S. Wood and Mahlon Day of New York.
Of the engravers on copper, many tried their hands on these toy-books. Among them may be mentioned Amos Doolittle of New Haven, James Poupard, John Neagle, and W. Ralph of Philadelphia, and Rollinson of New York, who is credited with having engraved the silver buttons on the coat worn by Washington on his inauguration as President.
But of the copper-plate engravers, perhaps none did more work for children’s books than William Charles of Philadelphia. Charles, who is best known by his series of caricatures of the events of the War of 1812 and of local politics, worked upon toy-books as early as eighteen hundred and eight, when in Philadelphia he published in two parts “Tom the Piper’s Son; illustrated with whimsical engravings.” In these books both text and pictures were engraved, as will be seen in the illustration. Charles’s plates for a series of moral tales in verse were used by his successors, Mary Charles, Morgan & Yeager, and Morgan & Sons, for certainly fifteen years after the originals were made. To William Charles the children in the vicinity of Philadelphia were also probably indebted for the introduction of colored pictures. It is possible that the young folks of Boston had the novelty of colored picture-books somewhat before Charles introduced them in Philadelphia, as we find that “The History and Adventures of Little Henry exemplified in a series of figures” was printed by J. Belcher of the Massachusetts town in 1812. These “figures” exhibited little Henry suitably attired for the various incidents of his career, with a movable head to be attached at will to any of the figures, which were not engraved with the text, but each was laid in loose on a blank page. William Charles’s method of coloring the pictures engraved with the text was a slight advance, perhaps, upon the illustrations inserted separately; but it is doubtful whether these immovable plates afforded as much entertainment to little readers as the separate figures similar to paper dolls which Belcher, and somewhat later Charles also, used in a few of their publications.
The “Peacock at Home,” engraved by Charles and then colored in aqua-tint, is one of the rare early colored picture-books still extant, having been first issued in eighteen hundred and fourteen. The coloring of the illustrations at first doubled the price, and seems to have been used principally for a series of stories belonging to what may be styled the Ethics-in-Play type of juvenile literature, and entitled the “History and Adventures of Little William,” “Little Nancy,” etc. These tales, written after the objective manner of Miss Edgeworth, glossed over by rhyme, contained usually eight colored plates, and sold for twenty-five cents each instead of twelve cents, the price of the picture-book without colored plates. Sometimes, as in the case of “Cinderella,” we find the text illustrated with a number of “Elegant Figures, to dress and undress.” The paper doll could be placed behind the costumes appropriate to the various adventures, and, to prevent the loss of the heroine, the book was tied up with pink or blue ribbon after the manner of a portfolio.
With engravers on wood and copper able to make more attractive the passion for instruction which marked the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the variety of toy-book literature naturally became greater. Indeed, without pictures to render somewhat entertaining the Labor-in-Play school, it is doubtful whether it could have attained its widespread popularity.