Educate! Amuse! And In Colors! : Selections from the George M. Fox Collection of Early Children's Books

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Beginning December 15th, and just in time to brighten yourholidays, you will have the opportunity to view some beautiful 19th centurychildren’s picture books from the George M. Fox Collection of Early Children's Books in the Skylight Gallery.

Routledge’s Picture Gift Book, London,  George Routledge & Sons. Illustration by Harden Sidney Melville and printed by Vincent Brooks

A Little Girl’s Visit To A Flower Garden. [A Little Girl’s Visit To A Country Garden on title page] London.  George Routledge & Co. Edmund Evans, engraver and printer.

This exhibition,entitled Educate! Amuse! And In Colors! features over eighty examples ofcolor printing, especially color wood engraving and chromolithographs. Many arefragile, paper pamphlets which open to reveal color that is stillbrilliant after more than 130 years.
 

Four Footed Favourites; drawn by Giacomelli and described by Mrs. Surr. London & Edinburgh, T. Nelson & Sons.

Highlights of the exhibit include “toy” and “moveable”books; many examples from the shop of Edmund Evans, the premier 19th centuryprinter of colored wood engravings (whose most notable artists were WalterCrane, Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway); and many examples of fineBritish chromolithographs from the firms of Thomas Nelson & Sons, FrederickWarne, Dean & Son and George Routledge & Sons. Early hand-coloredimages are included as well.

Birds on the Wing, pictures by Giacomelli. London ; Edinburgh : Thomas Nelson and Sons, [1878?]

George M. Fox

The Fox Collection  includesmore than 2,000 early British and American children's picture books, many ofwhich were drawn from the file copies of the McLoughlin Brothers publishers ofNew York, along with other books acquired over the years by Mr. George M. Foxof Charlemont, Massachusetts. The books are notable for their pristinecondition; probably because, as file copies, they were never handled bychildren. Mr. Fox generously donated his collection to the library's Marjorie G. and Carl W. Stern Book Arts and Special Collections Center in 1978 andthey are on view to the public for the first time since 1986.

  We will mark the official opening of the exhibition with alecture by Laura E. Wasowicz, Curator of Children's Literature from the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts, on Saturday, January 5, 2013at 2pm in the Main Library’s Koret Auditorium. Her talk is entitled McLoughlin Brothers: Nineteenth-Century Entrepreneurs and Innovators of the American Picture Book. The AAS owns an extensive collection of McLoughlinBrothers materials, including original drawings and prints, picture books,paper dolls, games, correspondence, publisher’s catalogs, price lists andmanuscripts. The title, Educate! Amuse!And In Colors!, is taken from advertising copy found in their catalogs.

British Sports & Games, Glasgow : John S. Marr & Sons. [18--?]

 

The Comic Alphabet containing 26 illustrations by P. [Percy] Cruikshank. London, Read & Co. Series: “Toy and Story Books For Children.” Hand-colored.

The exhibit runs through March 10, 2013.