Books were an expensive luxury, affordable only to upper middle classes, until about 1825. With the exception of cheap little pamphlets or chapbooks (small paper-covered booklets sold by chapmen, or peddlers), and possibly religious books such as the Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress, most families would not own books. The Sunday School movement, begun on a large scale by Robert Raikes in 1799, gave poor children an opportunity to learn to read and increased national literacy rates, providing an incentive for publishers to look for means of producing cheaper books. Improved paper-making, printing and binding processes began to bring magazines and books within the range of a wider public. At the same time, as the population grew and the standard of living rose, the demand for a wider range of instructional and especially recreational reading material became more intense.

For the publishers of children’s books the opportunities provided by the prosperity of the Victorian Age were unparalleled. In a change from the attitude of earlier times, in which children were regarded as small, imperfect adults who required constant instruction and admonition children were now seen in a more positive light. There was still a great deal of control, for caregivers frequently cautioned that "children should be seen and not heard," but there was also a celebration of childhood as a time of innocence and merriment (at least, for those fortunate enough not to be sent to work from an early age). Toys, books and games designed to amuse were available, rather than just the dry educational or moral books that had previously dominated the children’s book market, despite the happy and exceptional examples provided by John Newbery, Thomas Boreman and a few other sympathetic publishers.

Then as now, a marketing device with irresistible appeal to parents and fond relatives was the book which was claimed to combine "instruction and delight," the type of book which turned the task of learning into a pleasure. Interestingly, publishers of the rational, educational books of 1780-1830 had made the same claim, but their intent had been to sugar the large pills of instruction that they meant children to swallow. In the books shown on this page there is far more amusement than education but the publishers take great pains, in the case of The Book of Mazes and The Book of Trades, to point out the instructional value of the text. Newman’s Moveable Shadows and Weatherly’s Magic Pictures are more overt, or more honest, in their intent to please. Try doing the mazes on the screen, and then try printing them out to do by hand.

The Book of mazes in colours. London, Ward, Lock and Tyler, [ca. 1860]. Ff. [12]. 22.4 x 28 cm.

Colour lithographed by the Leighton Brothers in an "Indestructible Edition on Strong Cloth" (paper mounted on a canvas backing), the six mazes are advertised as an educational pastime, at which "many hours may be employed, pleasantly and happily, and not, perhaps, quite unprofitably in all times and seasons." The cover price is one shilling, "beautifully coloured."

The book of trades. Warne’s Picture Puzzle toy books. London, F. Warne & co. [ca.1870]. Ff. [10] 26.2 x 22.5 cm.

Cover-title. Directions on "How to use this picture-book" are given on the first leaf, which is pasted to the front cover. "Key pages contain the objects, figures and parts of figures, belonging to the blanks left in the picture book. The objects, etc. are all numbered according to the pages to which they belong. …They must be cut out neatly …and stuck… in the blanks which they fit. …The blanks might also be coloured by the child." The six plates when completed represent the trades of a carpenter, builder, miller, watchmaker, coachbuilder, and ship-owner. This is the seventh in a series of eight with plates printed in colour by Kronheim.

Ellen, or The naughty girl reclaimed, a story, exemplified in a series of figures. London: Printed for S. and J. Fuller, 1811. Pp. 19. 12.2 x 9.7 cm.

A story in verse accompanied by nine paper-doll figures and a moveable head. The fifth edition of Little Fanny and the fourth edition of Little Henry, other paper-doll stories, are advertised on the back brown stiff-paper cover. Incomplete: five head-pieces and the original slip-case are wanting.

Newman, William. Moveable shadows. By W. Newman … London, Dean & son [1857]. Ff. [9]. 18 x 12 .4 cm.

Series one. By pulling a tab, a disrespectful shadow of each figure is disclosed.

Weatherly, F.E. Magic pictures: a book of changing scenes. London: Ernest Nister, and New York: E.P. Dutton, [1895]. Pp. [16]. 24 x 19 cm.

A set of six dissolving scenes with accompanying verses. Colour printed in Bavaria.

Gift of Frank Darroch in memory of Eva Rose Wolverton.