Little Bo-Peep. Also the Story of Henny-Penny

New York: Barton & Co, 1858. Nineteenth-century American children’s book printed on linen, featuring seven color illustrations by Harrison Weir. The volume opens with the classic nursery rhyme “Little Bo-Peep,” and closes with the story of credulous Henny-Penny, better remembered today as Chicken Little, who believes that the sky is falling. This copy was never stitched or bound into wrappers: it remains in sheets. First published in the early 1850s as one of the “Indestructible Pleasure Books” from New York’s Evans & Brittan, later Evans & Dickerson, Little Bo-Peep was republished by Sheldon, Blakeman & Company several years later. Joseph Barton, the printer for the Sheldon, Blakeman series, established Barton & Co. at 111 Fulton Street in 1858, and continued to reissue a number of Indestructible Pleasure Books under his own imprint, as here. See the 19th-Century Juvenile Series website for details on all the New York printers involved in this early American children’s series. A very good example, in the original linen sheets. Octavo, never bound, measuring 7 x 4.75 inches: [16]. Printed on linen, with seven full-page color illustrations. Occasional discoloration, first and last leaves faded with some offsetting. (Inventory #: 1004021)