A loser child who was too lazy even to be a bookseller (!)

[Juvenile Chapbook, New Haven - 1820]

[CHILDREN'S CHAPBOOK / BOOKSELLING]. The Shipwreck; or, Humanity Rewarded

New-Haven, CT: Sidney's Press for J. Babcock & Son, 1820. 32mo. (103 x 60 mm). Woocut frontispiece, title-page, alphabet on verso with uppercase roman and italic type, pp. [5]-30 + 1 p. ads for J. Babcock & Son. Contemporary (original?) American "Dutch" gilt floral wrappers, stitched (overcase stitching at a later date), edges of textblock worn, some foxing and browning. Contemporary ownership notes on frontipiece, title, and elsewhere. Good. Item #3277

A child too lazy to be a bookseller!

¶ Well-read copy of this 1820 American cautionary "nautical tale" for children, preserved in charming contemporary American "Dutch" gilt floral wrappers. The first tale includes a wayward younger brother who “had been placed in several situations; but, too indolent for labour, and too volatile for application, he had abandoned some, and had been discarded from others. His last employment had been with a BOOK-SELLER, where he was obliged to be more attentive to business than he had been accustomed to. This roused his indignant spirit, and he soon after quitted it.”

Although printed and published in New Haven, this chapbook is absent from Yale University Library.

¶ Interestingly, one of the tales originates in Dutchess County, the other is set in Egg-Harbor, each suggesting good conduct and industry are best calculated to protect youth who are lost at sea (or who have been reduced to begging on shore after disastrous voyages).

¶ Welch 1202.3 (noting that the chapbook was first published as "The Shipwreck and Benevolence Rewarded" in 1808 (New York, Jansen and Jansen). American Imprints 3218.

Price: $500.00