Banbury Chap Books

AND

Nursery Toy Book Literature

[OF THE XVIII. AND EARLY XIX. CENTURIES]

with

IMPRESSIONS FROM SEVERAL HUNDRED

ORIGINAL WOOD-CUT BLOCKS,

By T. & J. BEWICK, BLAKE, CRUIKSHANK, CRAIG, LEE,
AUSTIN, AND OTHERS.

Illustrating Favourite Nursery Classics, with their Antiquarian, Historical,
Literary and Artistic Associations:

FAITHFULLY GLEANED FROM THE ORIGINAL WORKS IN THE
BODLEIAN LIBRARY, OXFORD, THE BRITISH AND
SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUMS, &c.

With very much that is Interesting and Valuable appertaining to the early
Typography and Topography of Children’s Books relating
to Great Britain and America.

including

Jack the Giant Killer, Cock Robin, Tom Thumb,
Whittington, Goody Two Shoes, Philip Quarll, Tommy
Trip, York and Banbury Cries, Children in the Wood,
Dame Trot, Horn Books, Battledores, Primers, etc.

By EDWIN PEARSON.

LONDON:

Arthur Reader, 1, Orange Street, Bloomsbury, W.C. 1890.

Only 50 copies Large Paper,
500   „   Small.

INTRODUCTION.

anbury Cakes,” and “Banbury Cross,” with its favourite juvenile associations, with the Lady with bells on her toes, having music wherever she goes, are indissolubly connected with the early years not only of ourselves but many prior generations. In fact, the Ancient Cross has been rebuilt since the days, when in Drunken Barnaby’s Journal, we are made familiar with the puritan “who hanged his cat on a Monday for killing of a mouse on a Sunday.” The quaint old town and its people are rapidly modernizing; but they cling to the old traditions. Both in pictorial and legendary lore we have some Banburies of another kind altogether, viz., Banbury Blocks, or in plain English, Engraved Woodcut Blocks, associated with the Local Chap Books, Toy Books, and other Histories, for which this quaint old Oxfordshire town is celebrated. The faithful description of the Blocks illustrating this volume has led to numerous descriptive digressions, apparently irrelevant to the subject; it was found however that in tracing out the former history and use of some of the “Bewick” and other cuts contained in this volume, that the Literary, Artistic, Historical, Topographical, Typographical, and Antiquarian Reminiscences connected with the early Printing and Engraving of Banbury involved that of many other important towns and counties of Great Britain, and also America. A provincial publisher about the beginning of the present century would reflect more or less the modus operandi of each of his contemporaries in abridging or reproducing verbatim the immortal little chap books issued from the press of John Newbury’s “Toy Book Manufactory,” at the Bible and Sun (a sign lately restored), 65, Saint Paul’s Church Yard, near the Bar.

This again leads to the subject as to who wrote these clever little tomes. In my “Angler’s Garland,” printed at the Dryden Press, 1870 and 1871, I fully announced my intention of issuing a reprint of the first edition of “Goody Two Shoes,” but the intended volume was published by the firm at the corner, “Griffith, Farren, Okenden, and Welsh,” now in the direct line of business descent from worthy and industrious John Newbery: Carman, Harris, Grant and Griffith. Mr. Charles Welsh of the present firm has taken a warm interest in the Antiquarian and Historical Associations of the Newbery firm. The premises have been lately rebuilt, the Sign and Emblems adopted by Newbery restored, and C. Welsh has reprinted “Goody Two Shoes” in facsimile, since which there has been added to it a Standard edition of Goldsmith’s Works, edited by Mr. Gibbs. I had the pleasure of making many researches respecting the old London publisher (Goldsmith’s friend), John Newbery, respecting his Lilliputian Classics, and I have been enabled to introduce several of the Quarto early editions to the firm, and have had great pleasure in writing and placing on record numerous facts and data, since utilized in the very interesting “Life of John Newbery, a last century bookseller.” The connection of Oliver Goldsmith’s name is indissolubly associated with the juvenile classics industriously issued by Newbery. Dr. Johnson himself edited and prefaced several children’s books which I have seen in the Jupp and Hugo Collections. The weary hours of adversity, through which “Goldie” passed at Green Arbour Court, top of Break Neck Steps and Turn Again Lane—I remember them all well, and the Fleet prison walls too, when I was a boy—and in refuge at Canonbury Tower, near the village of Islington, these are the places where Goldsmith wrote for children. Sir Joshua Reynolds tells how, when he called on the poet at Green Arbour Court, he found the couplet:—

“By sports like these are all their cares beguiled,
The sports of children satisfy the child.”

see “The Traveller.” He was surrounded by children in this unsavoury neighbourhood, where he had his humble domicile: a woodcut in Lumburd’s Mirror depicts it very correctly. Bishop Percy, author of the “Reliques,” called on him, and during the interview the oft repeated incident occurred of a little child of an adjacent neighbour, “Would Mr. Goldsmith oblige her mother with a chamber pot full of coals!” Truly these were hours of ill-at-ease. The largest collection of the various relics of woodcuts used in the chap book literature, “printed for the Company of Flying Stationers, also Walking Stationers,”—for such is a portion of the imprint to be found on several of the early Chap Books printed at Banbury—is to be seen in the Library of the British Museum; but the richest collection of these celebrated little rarities of

Toy Books is in the venerable Bodleian Library. Among the very interesting block relics of the past are the pretty cuts to Mrs. Trimmer’s “Fabulous Histories, or The Robins:” these were designed by Thomas Bewick, and engraved by John Thompson, his pupil, who enriched Whittingham’s celebrated Chiswick Press with his fine and tasteful work. A numerous series of little fable cuts by the same artist are to be found in this volume. One of the quaintest sets engraved at an early period by John Bewick (the Hogarth of Newcastle), are to “The Hermit, or Adventures of Edward Dorrington,” or “Philip Quarll,” as it was most popularly known by that title a century ago. The earliest edition I have seen of Philip Quarll is as follows: “The Hermit, or the unparalleled sufferings and surprising adventures of Mr. Philip Quarll, an Englishman who was lately discovered by Mr. Dorrington, a Bristol merchant, upon an uninhabited island in the South Sea, where he lived above fifty years without any human assistance, still continues to reside, and will not come away,” etc. Westminster: Printed by J. Cluer and A. Campbell, for T. Warner in Paternoster Row, and B. Creape at The Bible in Jermyn Street, St. James’s, 1727. 8vo, xii pp., map and explanation,