As you may recall from our series of posts on children's literature (9-14 June 2009), "it wasn't until John Newbery published A Little Pretty Pocket-Book in 1744 that children's literature as we know it today came into being." It was not until some years after the appearance of this landmark publication that the first successful movable books for children were published.
As Ann Montanaro has noted, these books--called variously metamorphoses books, turn-up books and/or Harlequinades (these latter designed by the London publisher and bookseller Robert Sayer ca. 1765)--were composed of single, printed sheets folded perpendicularly into four. Hinged at the top and bottom of each fold, the picture was cut through horizontally across the center to make two flaps that could be opened up or down. When raised, the pages disclosed another hidden picture underneath, each having a few lines of verse:
A similar type of "life-the-flap book" was developed by the miniature portrait painter William Grimaldi. In The Toliet (1821), Grimaldi used items on his "daughter's dressing table as representations of specific virtues. The articles served as flaps, which, when lifted up, revealed scenes illustrating each virtue." (The images below are from a later printing of this title, ca. 1845.) He produced a similar book for boys, A Suit of Armour for Youth (1823), which substituted pieces of armour for tolietry items, to the same moral effect. Both books were published by his son, Stacy:
Another type of movable book for children was introduced by the London publishers S & J Fuller beginning ca. 1810. Known as paper doll books, each book included movable paper clothes. A recent University of North Texas exhibition of such books notes that [t]he character wore a specific outfit in each episode of the verse; thus, as the book was read, the doll was supposed to be dressed in the appropriate attire. The books would often tell morality tales aimed at children. Such books were more expensive than regular children's books, and were most likely marketed to the upper classes:
Another early movable book for children was the peep show or tunnel book, which may have evolved from the traveling exhibits that often accompanied early fairs and festivals. So called because they usually depicted "scenes from famous stories or topical events and were viewed through a small hole in the cover," they became especially popular in the mid-1800s, after the opening of the tunnel under the Thames River in London (accounting for the latter name). A modern example of this type of book, by noted book artist Carol Barton, is depicted below:
It was a publishing firm founded in London sometime before 1800 that would launch the first mass production of movable books for children, as we shall see in tomorrow's post....
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