Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) rewrote six famous classic Greek myths for this book, first published in 1853. It followed by a year his equally famous A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys. These two books were among his last works and were aimed specifically at a younger audience. The stories in this edition include: The Minotaur The Pygmies The Dragon's Teeth Circe's Palace The Pomegranate Seeds The Golden Fleece Sterrett (1900-1931) died tragically young from tuberculosis. During her short career she illustrated this book as well as works such as "Old French Fairy Tales" by Comtesse de Segur, and "Arabian Nights." Some of these other illustrations (which may not be in the public domain) can be found off this site HERE. Many volumes of the book are digitized on line with the full text available. This edition is available at Archive.org and Google Books also has some texts digitized. There are also sites with Sterrett's images available, although often for a fee. I have made reproductions available for sale HERE, although you may download them for no cost in the gallery by using the link below. As always, the images are free to download in a range of high ...

This is fairly common but often sought after school book or primer first published in 1832. It is a sequel to "First Book of History, by the Author of Peter Parley's Tales" which was for younger students. It went through at least 30 or 40 editions before 1850, which in this case meant printings, and often there was little to differentiate between editions. These images are from the Eleventh Edition , copyright 1835 and printed in 1836. The text is full of woodcuts or a similar type of engraving. These images are small illustrations primarily showing figures in the national dress of various countries,as well as people from English and British history. The maps are, unfortunately, the weakest part of this book. They are woodcuts or likely some other type of engraving. They are beautifully rendered, but they were bound facing each other with no tissue guards, as this was an inexpensive textbook for children. The result is a great deal of shadowing or bleeding from adjacent maps, resulting in a ghost image on each page. I have not tried to correct for this. A feature I find particularly nice about these maps is the mountains. A light black, the ...

Robinson Crusoe certainly ranks up there as one of the favorite books for publishers to reissue with new illustrations. The adventure, the scenery, and the familiarity with the story seem to guarantee an audience no matter the era. Daniel de Foe wrote the book in the early 18th century (1719), and I don't think anyone knows how many editions there have been, nor how many well known illustrators have taken on the challenge of presenting the material in a new light over the subsequent 290 years. Google has digitized many versions, although none with good illustration reproductions of course. You can, however, browse the various editions to get an idea of the different illustrative styles. HERE is a Google Books example from 1831, a Cochrane and Pickersgill edition, where the entire text is accessible. Alexander Frank Lydon (1836-1917) was a British artist who produced a lot of natural history work, including parrots, other birds, and fish among much else. His prints and books with his work show up frequently on eBay at fairly reasonable prices. Here is a list of current Lydon items for sale there. Grooombridge put out this edition in the mid ...

Biggle's Poultry Book was published as part of the small, pocket sized Biggle Farm Library series. These images are from the 9th edition, although the plates did not change between editions (content and chapters were added over the years). It remains very collectible in addition to having a lot of great information and reference material. It is considered an essential part of the subject's historical reference works, and is on Cornell University's list of Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA). It is a very small book, yet the illustrations are so detailed that they scan incredibly well and can be resized to many times their original size. I do not know a lot about Louis Graham, other than he liked to draw fowl. I have heard from a number of people who have original works by him (all birds) and everyone says his the originals are keepsakes and very nice. This book has 16 chromolithographed color plates along with numerous black and white illustrations. I have reproduced just about every scannable image. The color images are at the beginning of the gallery, but some of the black and white details are nice too and would be useful for ...

Many of us, through the generations since their original publication in 1916, automatically associate Wright's drawings with the Mother Goose rhymes. For thousands of people, they are the quintessential images that come to mind whenever a Mother Goose Rhyme is recited. As with many books, I was surprised to find that these images really were not available online in large, quality format. Thumbnails are available, as at Project Gutenberg which has digitized the entire text, but high resolution copies were available only for a fee, if even then. I am grateful to Project Gutenberg in that I was able to use their text to accompany the image i scanned and posted here. Mother Goose, of course, is not the true author of these rhymes. Many have been around for half a millennium or more, and the authorship is considered "traditional." A French author, Charles Perrault, compiled a group of these in the late 17th century. English translations followed and new material was added over the years. The term Mother Goose has some to mean tradition nursery rhymes, even those not technically associated with this historic collection. For this book, I have included extra large versions ...

Well, now everything actually has been transferred to the Gallery, including about 100 "orphaned" images I found on my site which had not been linked to previously. Please continue to give me any feedback about how this new site looks to and works for you. I appreciate all input and will continue to tweak things to make it work better. I have added a translator box now which I hpe will help any non-English reading guests. I will "de-stickify" this post soon. - John