Stories Before 1850. 0151: Anon., Juvenile Stories
| Author: |
Anon. |
| Title: |
Juvenile Stories |
| Cat. Number: |
0151 |
| Date: |
No date (inscription dated 1831) |
| 1st Edition: |
|
| Pub. Place: |
London |
| Publisher: |
E. Marshall, Three-Kings Court, Fleet Street (from p.24) |
| Price: |
Unknown |
| Pages: |
1 vol., 24pp. |
| Size: |
15 x 9 cm |
| Illustrations: |
Full-page frontispiece plus four wood-cuts and several vignettes in the text |
| Note: |
Title-page missing. Inscription on fly-leaf: 'Frederick Septimus Grey / from his dear sister Harriet / 15th February 1831' |
Images of all pages of this book
Introductory essay
Juvenile Stories is made up of eight short cautionary tales, each illustrating a single virtue. Several recommend obedience to parents. In 'The Bridge', for example, a little girl finds herself pushed into the river by a drove of oxen because she has not followed her mother's advice not to walk on that side of the bridge (pp.6-7). Likewise, the protagonist of 'Jenny and the Pigs' finds herself badly bitten by a sow because she had defied her mother's instructions not to play with the pigs (p.21f). Other stories deal with the wickedness of scrumping gooseberries or of becoming angry with a dog which had broken a kite. After all, it was not the dog's intention to spoil the fun. The longest of the tales, 'The Pony', follows the progress of 'little Greenwood', a young boy who has just been given a new pony. His father instructed him not to venture too far, but Greenwood disregarded him. He soon became lost, was robbed of his clothes by gypsies, and only through good fortune found his way home again (p.16ff).
The Hockliffe Collection's copy of Juvenile Stories has lost its title-page, and its date is uncertain. The appearance and textual style of the book perhaps suggest that, despite the manuscript inscription from 1831, the book was published in the late eighteenth, or very early nineteenth, century.
