By 1800 literature for children had become an established fact. Large numbers of publications were ostentatiously addressed to their amusement; but nearly all hid a bitter if wholesome powder in a very small portion of jam. Books of educational purport, like "A Father's Legacy to his Daughter," with reprints of classics that are heavily weighted with morals--Dr. Johnson's "Rasselas" and "Æsop's Fables," for instance--are in the majority. "Robinson Crusoe" is indeed among them, and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," both, be it noted, books annexed by the young, not designed for them.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "ROBINSON CRUSOE." BY CHARLES KEENE (JAMES BURNS. 1847)]
The titles of a few odd books which possess more than usually interesting features may be jotted down. Of these, "Little Thumb and the Ogre" (R. Dutton, 1788), with illustrations by William Blake, is easily first in interest, if not in other respects. Others include "The Cries of London" (1775), "Sindbad the Sailor" (Newbery, 1798), "Valentine and Orson" (Mary Rhynd, Clerkenwell, 1804), "Fun at the Fair" (with spirited cuts printed in red), and Watts's "Divine and Moral Songs," and "An Abridged New Testament," with still more effective designs also in red (Lumsden, Glasgow), "Gulliver's Travels" (greatly abridged, 1815), "Mother Gum" (1805), "Anecdotes of a Little Family" (1795), "Mirth without Mischief," "King Pippin," "The Daisy" (cautionary stories in verse), and the "Cowslip," its companion (with delightfully prim little rhymes that have been reprinted lately). The thirty illustrations in each are by Samuel Williams, an artist who yet awaits his due appreciation. A large number of classics of their kind, "The Adventures of Philip Quarll," "Gulliver's Travels," Blake's "Songs of Innocence," Charles Lamb's "Stories from Shakespeare," Mrs. Sherwood's "Henry and his Bearer," and a host of other religious stories, cannot even be enumerated. But even were it possible to compile a full list of children's books, it would be of little service, for the popular books are in no danger of being forgotten, and the unpopular, as a rule, have vanished out of existence, and except by pure accident could not be found for love or money.