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 Appleby Books is proud to be a shareholder in TomFolio.com, a book search which is solely owned and operated by a co-operative of independent booksellers. On TomFolio.com, you'll receive the personal assistance and care which has characterized the book trade for the last however-many hundreds of years. The technology is 21st century but the knowledge, ethics and customer service traditional to bookselling is unchanged on TomFolio.com, making it the best place online to buy used and collectible books and ephemera. Please drop by for a visit!
Collectible & Rare Children's Books ~ Related LinksThe Cotsen Children's Library is an important historical collection of 23,000 illustrated children's books and related items on deposit at Princeton University. The site features some unusual online exhibits which are lots of fun. Don't miss Creepy Crawlies, Insects in Picture Books and Water Babies, Swimming in Picture Books. Also interesting is Magic Lantern and Beatrix Potter, Fabulist.
DareWright.com is a special site for the many admirers of Ms. Wright's delightful photographic books.
"To learn to love books and reading is one of the very best things that can happen to anybody."
—Walter de la Mare in his introduction to Tom Tiddler's Ground
The Secret Lives of Toys and Their Friends was the title of an exhibit in the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives at the University of Albany. A bibliography is included. We have available The Toys of Nuremberg, a copy of which was included in this exhibit.
The Afterlife of Alice and Her Adventures in Wonderland, a recent exhibit held in the University of Florida Smathers Library, included "other editions (of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), including the early draft Alice's Adventures Underground which includes Lewis Carroll's own illustrations, later editions and illustrated versions of the book, texts that reference Alice, and other materials from popular culture." Some images are available online and there is also a downloadable PowerPoint file.
If you loved this author's books as a child, you'll enjoy the website of the Thornton W. Burgess Society whose aim is "to inspire reverence for wildlife and concern for the natural environment."
Rutgers has compiled a marvelous Mother Goose Bibliography: Mother Goose: A Scholarly Exploration which also includes some images.
An interesting site for those who enjoy the writings of Elizabeth Coatsworth and Henry Beston, both of whom wrote for children and adults.
The Milner Library has a terrific Lois Lenski page with a complete list of all her titles.
Roy E. Plotnick has a wonderful page (with relevant links) entitled In Search of Watty Piper: A Brief History of the "Little Engine" Story which provides a publishing history of the beloved story and background on the controversy surrounding the origins of the tale.
"Perhaps we are born knowing the tales for our grandmothers and all their ancestral kin continually run about in our blood repeating them endlessly, and the shock they give us when we first hear them is not of surprise but of recognition."
—P.L. Travers speaking of fairy tales in About the Sleeping Beauty
One of the features of The Dr. Seuss Collection in the Mandeville Special Collections Library of UC San Diego is The Advertising Artwork of Dr. Seuss. There is also
A Catalog of Political Cartoons by Dr. Seuss.
A collection of Children's Books of the Early Soviet Era was displayed at McGill University in 1998 and is here reproduced online. The Russian children's books of this era are characterized by the most amazing and wonderful graphics.
An exhibit of Frank L. Baum's American Fairy Tale The Wizard of Oz can be found at the website of the Library of Congress.
No man has a right to bring up children without surrounding them with books . . .
Children learn to read being in the presence of books.
— Horace Mann (1796-1859)
The Elizabeth Nesbitt Room at the University of Pittsburgh houses several special collections on the history of children and their books dating from the 1600's to the present.
The American Library Association (ALA) features the home pages of the Caldecott Medal and the Newbery Medal. Complete lists of medal winners and honor books (from 1938 and from 1922 respectively) can be found on the site.
"I, Florence Figg, am a bookman. I dream of a gentle world, peopled with good people and filled with simple and quiet things."
—Ellen Raskin, Figgs & Phantoms (Newbery Honor)
Children's Literature, Chiefly from the Nineteenth Century is the title of an exhibit that was held in the Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina in 1996-97.
One can search for children's books in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress.
"'I've been at this job for a lifetime,' he said. 'Still, I don't know all about books.'"
—Mr O'Clery in The Bookshop on the Quay by Irish children's book author Patricia Lynch
The University of North Texas Libraries has a fine exhibit on Victorian Bookbinding.
Another excellent digital exhibit for those with an interest in decorative bindings is on the site of the University of Alabama: Publishers' Bindings Online, 1815-1930: The Art of Books.
An interesting online exhibit of gorgeous publishers' bindings from the rare books and special collections of the University of Rochester Libraries: Beauty for Commerce: Publishers' Bindings, 1830-1910.
How long have dustjackets been around, you've sometimes wondered? Ponder no longer - at least since 1832. NYPL has a fascinating collection of the jackets preserved by aesthetically minded librarians in an online exhibit: Dust Jackets from American and European Books, 1926-1947. Definitely worth a look. Click the link at the top of the page on the left which says, "See all Images". Among many other interesting digital collections on the site are: America's First Illustrator: Alexander Anderson and Publisher's Proofs and Related Work from L. Prang & Company. Prang published some wonderful children's books; the firm's chromolithography was outstanding.
For those of us who can't get enough of printed words and images, Wikipedia has a multi-linked treatment of the subject: The History of Printing. Quite a nice overview.
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