“You’re never to old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child” — Dr Suess
The growth of the middle class in the mid-1800s saw an increased demand for children’s books. Recognizing this need, publishers encouraged their writers and artists to develop well illustrated books with interesting story lines. As the century progressed, technical advances in both printing and color illustrations made it possible to produce large numbers of books at a reasonable price . . . and the Golden Age of children’s books was well under way.
Up until this time, books for children had been mostly textbooks. As books simply for the sake of entertainment grew in popularity a wealth of wonderful authors surfaced. Two highly recognizable authors are attributed with changing the way the publishing world viewed books for children. Hans Christian Andersen established the fairy tale as a legitimate form of literature and Lewis Carroll is credited with changing the focus of children’s books from instructional books to entertainment.
Publishers soon realized that the illustrations in books for young readers were just as important as the text. In the first half of the 19th century most children’s books were illustrated with woodcuts or printed on wood blocks and then hand-colored. As the century progressed, innovations in printing allowed for the widespread use of color and master printers were working with some of the most talented illustrators of the age. Collectors watch for picture books from this era featuring the works of Randolph Caldecott, Kate Greenaway, and Richard Doyle whose brilliant picture books produced under the direction of Edmund Evans are referred to as “six-penny color picture books” or “toy books.”
The Victorian era reflected the social boundaries between the sexes. Boys were treated to Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), while authors like Alcott and Wiggin wrote of for girls with books like Little Women and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. At the turn of the century animal stories restored the unisex appeal to children’s literature with the release of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Kipling’s classic The Jungle Book.
Many of the classics that we still enjoy today were written in the first half of the 20th Century. Notables include; “The Wizard of Oz” series which ran from 1900-1920, Rosie O”Neill’s delightful “Kewpies” were top sellers from 1910-1918, and the 1913 series of 15 “All About . . .” books from the publishing house of Cupples and Leon. The 1920s would see the release of the first volume of two of the most endearing children’s books of the 20th Century, The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warren in 1924 and A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh in 1926.
In the early 1930s struggling author Theodor S. Geisel submitted his first book to publishing houses 27 times before it was finally published in 1937. And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street would go on to sell over 600 million copies under his pen name, Dr. Seuss. In all there have been more than 60 books written and illustrated by Geisel and he ranks as one of the top 10 best selling children’s authors of the 20th Century with first editions selling in the thousands.
As we entered the 1940s children’s books became more segmented in terms of age. Before 1940, books had been intended for children six and older. This changed in 1941 with the release of the first pre-school books, The Runaway Bunny and Goodnight Moon, both illustrated by Clement Hurd.
Pre-1950’s children’s books are highly sought by collectors who collect by author, decade, topic matter or illustrator. Be on the lookout as they are sometimes overlooked by novice dealers in shops and flea markets and may be purchased for a fraction of their value. Until next time . . . Linda
Linda Kennett is a professional liquidation consultant specializing in down-sizing for seniors and the liquidation of estates and may be reached at 317-258-7835 or lkennett@indy.rr.com.