Social Tales for the Young

London: William Darton and Son, 1835. First Edition. Leather bound. Near fine. [ILLUSTRATED]. Stewart and Co., Old Bailey, printers. First edition. 16mo; 230pp; green goat, embossed design within panels, gilt lettering on spine; all edges gilt; pale yellow endpapers; engraved frontispiece printed in oil colors by George Baxter; some light foxing; near fine. OCLC locates 8 copies for this publisher and year. The frontispiece "carries Baxter's King Square address which he left during 1835, making this probably the first English children's book illustrated by colour-printing." Darton H1430(1). Percy Muir disagrees and names Caroline Mordaunt, also by Sherwood [1835] and printed by the younger Darton on Holborn Hill, to be the first color-illustrated book for children. Muir 179.

Mary Sherwood was one of the women writing at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries who were strongly influenced by Puritanism and wrote moralizing tales filled with piety of the young.