While the demand for the engraver’s work was constant, his remuneration was small, if we are to judge by Babcock’s payment of only fifty shillings for fifteen cuts.

For these toy-books Anderson made many reproductions from Bewick’s cuts, and although he did not equal the Englishman’s work, he so far surpassed his pupils and imitators of the early part of the century that his engravings are generally to be recognized even when not signed.  In eighteen hundred and two Dr. Anderson began to reproduce for David Longworth Bewick’s “Quadrupeds,” and these “cuts were afterwards made use of, with the Bewick letter-press also, for a series of children’s books."[168-A]

In eighteen hundred and twelve, for Munroe & Francis of Boston, Dr. Anderson made after J. Thompson a set of cuts, mainly remarkable “as the chief of his few departures from the style of his favorite, Bewick."[169-A]

The custom of not signing either text or engravings in the children’s books has made it difficult to identify writers and illustrators of juvenile literature.  But some of the best engravers undoubtedly practised their art on these toy-books.  Nathaniel Dearborn, who was a stationer, printer, and engraver in Boston about eighteen hundred and eleven, sometimes signed the full-page illustrations on both wood and copper, and Abel Bowen, a copper-engraver, and possibly the first wood-engraver in Boston, signed a very curious publication entitled “A Metamorphosis”—­a manifold paper which in its various possible combinations transformed one figure into another in keeping with the progress of the story.

C. Gilbert, a pupil of Mason, who had introduced the art of wood-engraving in Philadelphia from Boston, engraved on wood certainly the two full-page illustrations for “A Present for a Little Girl,” printed in eighteen hundred and sixteen for a Baltimore firm, Warner & Hanna.

Adams and his pupils, Lansing and Morgan, also did work on children’s books.  Adams seems to have worked under Anderson’s instruction, and after eighteen hundred and twenty-five did cuts for some books in the juvenile libraries of S. Wood and Mahlon Day of New York.

Of the engravers on copper, many tried their hands on these toy-books.  Among them may be mentioned Amos Doolittle of New Haven, James Poupard, John Neagle, and W. Ralph of Philadelphia, and Rollinson of New York, who is credited with having engraved the silver buttons on the coat worn by Washington on his inauguration as President.

But of the copper-plate engravers, perhaps none did more work for children’s books than William Charles of Philadelphia.  Charles, who is best known by his series of caricatures of the events of the War of 1812 and of local politics, worked upon toy-books as early as eighteen hundred and eight, when in Philadelphia he published in two parts “Tom the Piper’s Son; illustrated with whimsical engravings.”  In these books both text and pictures were engraved,