HARLEQUINADE - Mother Shipton or Harlequin in Despair..Book 7. London: Robert Sayer, 2nd March 1771. Single engraved sheet (182 x 330mm.). Hand-coloured wood-engraved 'toy-book', the single sheet folded perpendicularly into four, each of the four sections with hinged pictorial overlay flaps at head and foot. Stitched, in later brown wrappers. Provenance: Edward Arnold (armorial bookplate).

Details
HARLEQUINADE - Mother Shipton or Harlequin in Despair..Book 7. London: Robert Sayer, 2nd March 1771. Single engraved sheet (182 x 330mm.). Hand-coloured wood-engraved 'toy-book', the single sheet folded perpendicularly into four, each of the four sections with hinged pictorial overlay flaps at head and foot. Stitched, in later brown wrappers. Provenance: Edward Arnold (armorial bookplate).

A most attractive example of the earliest 'toy-books'. Between 1767 and 1772 Robert Sayer published 15 such booklets at 6d plain and 1s coloured, now all extremely rare. Cf. Percy Muir English Children's Books, 1954, p.204.

More from Books

View All
View All