Orphan Girl Dame Wonder 1856 John McLoughlin hand color children’s picture book

Dame Wonder's Picture Books- The Orphan Girl.

Published NY, John McLoughlin, 24 Beekman, c.1856. 

8 pp., eight hand colored (orig.) woodcut images.

An early McLoughlin, prior to the brothers joining imprint.

Nice clean example overall with excellent eye appeal.

Spine paper splitting, pages still gathered as issued with string tied spine, assorted small age spotting or soiling, light signs of handling, clearly an example which was set aside and taken care of.

Nicer than you might expect for fragile juvenile paper booklets from the middle of the 19th century, so over 150 years old. Precursor to modern comic books of the 1930's and then Golden Age on.

Images still mostly clean. 

The survival rate of 19th century color paper juvenile books such as this is very low, a minuscule percentage (almost certainly under 10% in most cases, probably 1-5% of half of all those originally produced. Some issues scattered all over the place in publishing history may all but no longer exist as copies.

So even if it were “a lot” made then, 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, thus meaning survival rates probably below 100 -200 per title, with variations of course depending upon factors such as size, title, orig. price, condition, etc.

Therefore, all surviving examples of 19th century color juvenile books should be considered inherently scarce and worthy of acquisition on some level, their actual comparative rarity being mostly invisible to the uninformed observer.

Book measures c. 7 1/2“ H x 4 1/2“W.

B15216