English Children's Books, 1600-1900

by Percy H. Muir

In this book, Percy Muir, a leading authority on English children's books, has written a scholarly and entertaining account of the works published for children during a period of three centuries. Mr. Muir passes over the books written solely to instruct or to improve and concentrates on those whose aim is entertainment. He discusses at some length, and with an endearing enthusiasm, the important children's writers and their books in the years preceding 1900. He provides lists- invaluable to the collector-of the most important children's books during each period, and he refers to the most useful works on the subject by earlier writers.

John Newbery is generally held to have originated children's books in 1740. Mr. Muir successfully challenges this assumption. He also satisfactorily fills in a number of gaps left by previous historians of the subject. The interesting and important publishing histories of the most famous children's books, here given for the first time, are especially valuable guides to this most ephemeral branch of the literature.

There are more than 100 illustrations: color plates, photographs and facsimile reproductions in "line". In themselves a most attractive collection, they will be of great value to the student of children's books. To the collector and librarian, the book will be a necessary work of reference; to the much wider public who loved children's books when young and who love them still it will be a delightful possession.

Genres: Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Percy Horace Muir began his career as a bookseller in 1920. He joined the London antiquarian booksellers Elkin Mathews in 1930, and would remain with that firm until his death in Norfolk on November 24, 1979.

Muir was an influential figure among booksellers and book collectors around the world. As president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association in Britain from 1945-1947, Muir chaired the first conference of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) in 1947. He then served as president of the ILAB from 1950 until 1952. At the end of his term in this office, he was elected Life President of Honor.

Muir's publications include several bibliographies and contributions to bibliographical journals such as The Library. He composed numerous letters, essays, and addresses on book collecting, including the immensely popular Book Collecting as a Hobby: Letters to Everyman (1944) and its sequel in 1949. Muir was a founding member of the Editorial Board of Book Collector, and wrote many reviews for this journal. His Minding My Own Business (1956) was both a history of the firm Elkin Mathews and an autobiographical account of Muir's career from the early 1920s to World War II.