THE HOME PICTURE-BOOK

London; Edinburgh; New York: T. Nelson and Sons, 1856. Hard Cover. Good binding. With title leaf, and four two-page spreads, verso and recto. Each page chromolithographed with eight numbered vignettes accompanied by short children’s verses; the vignettes and text are printed in purple and are surrounded with a gold ornamental border. Pastedown has the same design, with different vignettes and a poem in the center: “Come, Nature’s pleasing handmaid Art ... etc”. The same poem with different vignettes is on the title page. There is a gift inscription on the endpaper to an infant, Charles Calvert Stuart Post from his Aunt Laura, dated August of 1858; we note sadly that the young boy died a few months later. With the mid-19th century label of Robert Bell, Bookseller, Alexandria at the top corner of the pastedown. The boards are worn, and the tissue guards have mostly perished. There is foxing, though most of the text and vignettes are clean enough. The bottom edge of the endpaper has close to an inch of loss. An uncommon book of children’s verses; we locate 4 copies on OCLC, only one of which is in the United States. Good binding.