Little Drummer Boy McLoughlin hand color c.1860's early children’s picture book
Brian DiMambro- Antiquarian Books, Maps & Prints








Original antique juvenile book.
Dame Wonder's Picture Books- History of the Little Drummer.
Published NY, McLoughlin Brothers, c.1855-65. [12 pp. counting covers], 8 hand colored woodcut images.
Much loved and handled survival, covers loosened and well worn with edge splits, assorted age soiling, signs of handling, spine long ago thread hand stitched.
Images still mostly clean.
Small blank margin corner chew at top right of booklet, small neat archival tape repairs to all leaves with edge tears (easy to overlook, miss or forgive now).
The survival rate of 19th century paper juvenile books such as this is very low, a minuscule percentage of those originally produced.
So even if it were “a lot”, it would still be very modest by most modern standards of production. Meaning the actual sales run of hand made books like this would have to be measured in low thousands, meaning survival rates probably below 100 per title, with variations of course depending upon factors such as size, title, orig. price, etc.
Therefore, all examples should be considered inherently scarce and worthy of acquisition on some level, given their actual comparative rarity, which is mostly invisible to the uninformed observer.
Book measures c. 7 5/8" H x 4 3/8" W.
B15140