I have lately set up one of my grand-children, Benja.  F. Bache, as a Printer here, and he has printed some very pretty little Books for Children.  By the Sloop Friendship, Capt.  Stutson, I have sent a Box address’d to you, containing 150 of each volume, in Sheets, which I request you would, according to your wonted Goodness, put in a way of being dispos’d of for the Benefit of my dear Sister.  They are sold here, bound in marbled Paper at 1 S. a Volume; but I should suppose it best, if it may be done, to sell the whole to some Stationer, at once, unbound as they are; in which case I imagine that half a Dollar a Quire may be thought a reasonable Price, allowing usual Credit if necessary.

     My Love to your Family, & believe me ever,

     Your affectionate Uncle
          B. FRANKLIN.

     JONA.  WILLIAMS, ESQ.

Franklin’s reference to the Philadelphia manner of binding toy-books in marbled paper indicates that this home-made product was already displacing the attractive imported gilt embossed and parti-colored covers used by Thomas, who seems never to have adopted this ugly dress for his juvenile publications.  As the demand for his wares increased, Thomas set up other volumes from Newbery’s stock, until by seventeen hundred and eighty-seven he had reproduced practically every item for his increasing trade.  It was his custom to include in many of these books a Catalogue of the various tales for sale, and in “The Picture Exhibition” we find a list of fifty-two stories to be sold for prices varying from six pence to a shilling and a half.

These books may be divided into several classes, all imitations of the English adult literature then in vogue.  The alphabets and primers, such as the “Little Lottery Book,” “Christmas Box,” and “Tom Thumb’s Play-thing,” are outside the limits of the present subject, since they were written primarily to instruct; and while it is often difficult to draw the line where amusement begins and instruction sinks to the background, the title-pages can usually be taken as evidence at least of the author’s intention.  These other books, however, fall naturally under the heads of jest and puzzle books, nature stories, fables, rhymes, novels, and stories—­all prototypes of the nursery literature of to-day.

The jest and joke books published by Thomas numbered, as far as is known to the writer, only five.  Their titles seem to offer a feast of fun unfulfilled by the contents.  “Be Merry & Wise, or the Cream of the Jests and the Marrow of Maxims,” by Tommy Trapwit, contained concentrated extracts of wisdom, and jokes such as were current among adults.  The children for whom they were meant were accustomed to nothing more facetious than the following jest:  “An arch wag said, Taylors were like Woodcocks for they got their substance by their long bills.”  Perhaps they understood also the point in this:  “A certain lord had a termagant wife, and at the same time a chaplain that was a tolerable poet, whom his lordship desired to write a copy of verses upon a shrew.  I can’t imagine, said the chaplain, why your lordship should want a copy, who has so good an original.”  Other witticisms are not quotable.