Cotsen Conference “Enduring Trifles: Writing the History of Childhood with...
Enduring Trifles: Writing the History of Childhood with Ephemera February 17-19, 2011 On February 17-19, over 70 scholars, collectors, and bibliophiles gathered at Princeton for the 9th Cotsen...
View ArticleLa Fontaine’s Fables in Miniature
This marvelous circular engraving was taken out the other day while reorganizing the backlog of French prints. The dealer from whom it was purchased was somewhat puzzled as to what its purpose might...
View ArticleMarks in Books #4: Graffiti in The Child’s New Play-Thing.
An eighteenth-century writer could try to realize some cash by dedicating a work to an important person, who might return the favor with some remuneration. Perhaps the anonymous author of the...
View Article“Children, Brandy Is a Bad Liquor!”: Underage Drinking in the Enlightenment?
In 1794 Bernard Christian Faust (1755-1842), the court physician in the German principality of Schaumberg-Lippe, published a book designed to teach children the principles of healthy living. Its...
View ArticleMarks in Books #3: Scribbled Notes in “The New Pantheon, or Fabulous History...
Kids are interesting — and sometimes funny — readers of books; but so are “grown-ups”… We all do things with our own books that make perfect sense to us, but somebody else looking at the same books...
View ArticleTime to Wash the Lions… April Fools!!!
In the 1680s antiquarian John Aubrey was the first Englishman to mention the observance of April Fool’s Day. He stated that it was celebrated all over Germany, but folklorists assume that the holiday...
View ArticleSchool Days in Children’s Books…
One of the interesting aspects about cataloging children’s books is that you get to see quite an amazing variety of materials–“children’s books” includes fiction, stories, poetry, history, as well as...
View ArticleMarks in Books #5: A Danish Alphabet Decorated with Stick Figures
According to the 6th edition of John Carter’s essential ABC for Book Collectors (1980), “condition” in book collector’s mind “means a good deal more than the volume’s superficial, physical appearance;...
View ArticleMartin Engelbrecht’s Kleines Bilder-Cabinet: A Gift from Pamela K. Harer
Cotsen’s relationship with Pamela K. Harer, the noted children’s book collector, dates back to the late 1990s, when she was still practicing law in Southern California. As a collector, Pamela was...
View ArticleChristmas Book Shopping at John Newbery’s ca. 1765
The Christmas season is a most wonderful time of the year to praise the children’s bookseller. In this post, I’ll pay tribute to one of the most famous: John Newbery, the friend of Dr. Samuel Johnson...
View ArticleA Christmas Box, or, A Little Bibliographic Holiday Mystery…
Some Early Holiday Books for Children Published by the Baldwins Book publishers frequently reissue a variety of new versions of books around the holidays, many in “special holiday editions” or versions...
View ArticleBad Boys Make Mischief in 19th-century Children’s Books
During the Big Move–shifting miles of rare materials into RBSC’s cavernous new vault whose completion was celebrated in the previous post, “Moving Day in Feather Town“–I discovered three really awful...
View Article“Stump the Chump!:” Solve These Word Problems from 1748
Yesterday I was looking at the three editions of Arithmetic Made Familiar and Easy to Young Gentlemen and Ladies, the second volume in The Circle of the Sciences published by the famous 18th-century...
View ArticleCotsen Children’s Library Receives the 2015 Carle Honors Angel Award!
September 24th at the 10th Annual Carle Honors Princeton’s Cotsen Children’s Library was named an “Angel” for its efforts to raise awareness of the picture book as art form and influence in the wider...
View ArticleAnswers to the First Puzzler!
And now, the solutions for the puzzlers from Arithmetic Made Familiar and Easy… Puzzler 1 asked you to figure out the ages of girl and older man at the time of their wedding. The answer is that she...
View ArticleMother Goose: a Visual Icon and its Changes…
A (Very) Short History of “Mother Goose” in Print In a recent posting on the Cotsen blog, I talked about how American children’s books publisher McLoughlin Brothers depicted the “traditional” figure of...
View ArticleStump the Chump Number Two: Puzzle Out a Riddle
NO MATH NECESSARY FOR THE SECOND PUZZLER! This time it’s a riddle for the word people. As an added bonus, the solution will be spelled out with a set of bone alphabet letters similar to the one...
View ArticleOnly Copy of “Nancy Cock’s Song-Book” (1744) Acquired
Copies of the four foundational collections of English nursery rhymes are as scarce as proverbial hen’s teeth. There’s less chance of finding in your grandmother’s attic a copy of the two-volume...
View ArticleCotsen Occasional Press Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song-book Wins Schiller Prize
At the January, 2016 meeting of the Bibliographical Society of America (BSA) in New York City, the winner of BSA’s tri-annual Justin G. Schiller Prize for Bibliographical Work on Pre-20th-Century...
View ArticleThe Good Slave and Her Master: Object Lessons for 1790s England
In January I followed the controversy that erupted shortly after the publication of Ramin Ganeshram’s A Birthday Cake for George Washington, prompting Scholastic Press to recall it. Illustrated by...
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