Category Archives: Children’s Books

New Exhibition: Puzzles, Poetry and Playground Games

Posted on by

This week sees the launch of a new SC&A exhibition highlighting some of the more unusual items from our collections: those relating to games and pastimes, for children and adults, from the 18th-20th centuries.

D958: Queen Mary jigsaw puzzle [1936]

Included in the display are a huge range of games – some designed purely for fun, others intended to be more educative and improving, particularly for young, developing minds. We have, for example, jigsaw puzzles (depicting Cunard ships such as the Queen Mary, as above); activities which encouraged participants to try their hand at poetry; as well as illustrated guides to various playground and parlour games, many of which have now been forgotten (“Hunt the Slipper”, anyone?).

Noble D6.26: Kate Greenaway’s Book of Games (1889)

Also included are photographs from our Cunard collection which show passengers enjoying a variety of onboard activities, including bottle pushing, shuffleboard, “chalking the pig’s eye”, tug of war, and potato racing, from the 1920s-1960s.

The exhibition will run until September and is situated on the Ground Floor Grove Wing SC&A exhibition area.

World Poetry Day (1): International Women’s Day

Posted on by

This month we are celebrating both International Women’s Day (8th March) and World Poetry Day (21st March). Therefore, we are showcasing material held in the Special Collections and Science Fiction Foundation collections which contains poetry written by women who personally or professionally impacted greatly on their respective field of literature.

Phillis Wheatley, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)

Poems on Various Subjects was authored by Phillis Wheatley. Phillis was purchased as a slave by John Wheatley, a Boston Merchant and Tailor, in 1761. She was tutored by John’s children in reading and writing, and wrote her first poem ‘To The University of Cambridge, New England’ at the age of 12. She was relieved of her domestic duties by the Wheatley family, and encouraged  to continue working on her literature. An illustration of Wheatley by Scipio Moorhead, another Boston slave, is provided in the frontispiece; the below extract is taken from a poem within the volume written by Wheatley in return. Our copy belonged to one of the William’s of the Rathbone family (by date most likely IV or V), as signed on the title page. 

SPEC Y77.3.255

To S.M. a young African Painter, on seeing his Works (p. 114).
When first thy pencil did those beauties give,
And breathing figures learnt from thee to live, 
How did those prospects give my soul delight,
A new creation rushing on my sight?

Radclyffe Hall, Rhymes and Rhythms (1948)

Rhymes and Rhythms was published posthumously in an edition of only 500 numbered copies in Milan. Our copy from the Zania collection is numbered as “5”. The text is provided in both the original language of English as well as Italian. Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943) is best known for her work The Well of Lonliness, which when published in 1928 was subject to a trial for obscenity and banned in Great Britain. A self-described “invert”, she lived with two long-term female partners during her lifetime, hence the dedication page inscription “Dedicated to Our Three Selves”.

SPEC ZANIA E68

Those Who Have Eyes… (p.61)
As I took my way down a certain street,
I saw a shop with a corpse of meat,
And a horse that hadn’t enough to eat,
And a cur that limped on neglected feet,
And a cat that rubbed its sores on a wall,
And a lobster that crawled about a stall,
And an organ monkey coughing and small.
But the sight that filled me with deepest rage, 
Was a nightingale in a six inch cage.

Carol Ann Duffy, Jackie Kay (and various others), Five Finger Piglets: Poems (1999)

Carol Ann Duffy and Jackie Kay contributed to this anthology for children, Five Finger Piglets: Poems. Duffy was appointed poet laureate in 2009, and she is the first woman, first Scot, and first openly LGBT person to hold the position; Kay is the third Scottish Poet Laureate, appointed in 2016, and also identifies as LGBT. Our copy of the anthology is held in the SPEC Patten series, as Brian Patten also contributed to this volume. The poetry is understandably centered upon many themes that would be familiar to children (such as friendship disputes at school and losing a ball in the neighbours garden), but, nonetheless, the volume is a excellently fun read for adults, too.

SPEC Patten 108 © 1999 Macmillan Children’s Books, Carol Ann Duffy, Jackie Kay

Excerpt from Dracula (p. 36-7), by and © Jackie Kay
I crawled along the pine floor to my father’s bed.
It was empty. Just a white pillow and a headrest.
My dad gave a large guffaw from the balcony. 

Took off his black cape; threw back his head, 
said, ‘Got you there didn’t I?
Okay. The Joke’s over. Back to your bed.’

Can you believe that? All I am asking is:
who needs imagination, a fear or a dread, 
when what we’ve got is parent’s instead?

Charlotte Brooke, Reliques of Irish Poetry (1816)

Reliques of Irish Poetry was first published in the late eighteenth century. Brooke (c. 1740–1793) was passionate in the preservation of Irish culture and heritage through translating traditional poetry. Our beautiful gilt-tooled calf-bound copy of the 1816 reissue includes an extensive biography of Brooke’s life, as well as poetry and prose in both English and Irish. The text contains poetry of varied types, including quasi-epic style heroics, elegies to loves lost, and odes to wars.

SPEC Y81.3.426

Elergy III, exerpt (p. 260, attributed by Brooke to Edmond Ryan)
For thee all dangers would I brave,
Life with joy, with pride exposing, 
Breast for thee the stormy wave,
Winds and tides in vain opposing.

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination (2004)

As one of the most influential female Science Fiction authors of all time, Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) is best known for her fiction, including The Left Hand of Darkness (1969; which won both the Hugo and Nebula awards in 1970). However, in her 2004 collection of non-fiction essays The Wave in the Mind, she explores themes including the family, on being a woman, Tolkein, and writing. One particular interesting essay is her thoughts on stress rhythms in poetry and prose; she demonstrates, using various texts, the technique and necessity of reading with stress and rhythm in mind.

PX320.L34.W38 2004 © Ursula K. Le Guin

The observation of a pattern, even a arbitrary pattern, can give strength to words that otherwise would be bleating like lost lambs. (p. 78)

All the above can be consulted in the reading room. As usual, please do contact scastaff@liverpool.ac.uk for more information.

Kate Greenaway Medal

Posted on by

Today sees the announcement of the shortlist for the 2018 Kate Greenaway Medal, awarded annually by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) for an outstanding illustrated book for children. We thought this the perfect excuse to highlight Kate Greenaway herself – one of the country’s finest Victorian illustrators – and some of her work held here in SC&A.

Kate Greenaway (1846-1901) was born in the East End of London. From aged 12 she was a full-time student at the Finsbury School of Art, and later went on to attend classes at the National Art Training School in South Kensington, the Heatherley School of Fine Art, and the Slade School of Fine Art. Her first book illustration was published in 1867 – the frontispiece to William Kingston’s Infant Amusements, or, How to Make a Nursery Happy – but real success came in 1879 with the publication of Under the Window, her first book as an author-illustrator.

OLDHAM 794: A scene from Under the Window (1879), which comprised verse and accompanying illustrations. A huge critical and commercial success, the book sold over 100,000 copies in Greenaway’s lifetime.

From 1883 Greenaway also regularly produced illustrated almanacks, which proved hugely popular in Europe and the US. Following a revival of interest in Greenaway’s work in the 1920s, some of the almanacks were reissued with new text.

JUV.135.3, 4: Almanacks, 1883 and 1927, comprising illustrated calendars.

Greenaway preferred to illustrate her own text but she did collaborate with a number of the Victorian period’s foremost poets and novelists: in 1888, for example, she illustrated Robert Browning’s The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

NOBLE D.7.13: The front cover of The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1888), in which Greenaway adopted a Pre-Raphaelite style.

One of Greenaway’s most enduring relationships was with the art critic John Ruskin. She began a long-term correspondence with him in around 1880, and soon became one of his protégées: as her biographer notes, ‘Ruskin became the most important influence in Kate’s life’. In 1883 she visited Ruskin’s Lake District home of Brantwood in Coniston for the first time; initially intended to be a fortnight’s stay, she stayed for almost a month. The visit made a huge impression on her, as is clear from one of Greenaway’s letters held here in SC&A. The letter is one of two we have that she wrote to Eleanor Tennyson, wife of politician and author Augustine Birrell. In it Greenaway declares she is having a ‘delightful time’ and notes the ‘many new impressions in this to me quite new country’.

Birrell/3/1: Letter from Kate Greenaway to Eleanor Tennyson from Ruskin’s Lake District home.

The last of Greenaway’s illustrated works to be published in her lifetime was The April Baby’s Book of Tunes (1900) written by one of her favourite authors, Countess von Arnim. The book tells the story of the author’s own children, April, May and June, and the rhymes the babies enjoyed listening to in the nursery.

OLDHAM 262: A page from The April Baby’s Book of Tunes (1900).

The Kate Greenaway Medal was established in 1955, and past winners have included such giants of children’s literature as Janet and Allan Ahlberg, Shirley Hughes, Emily Gravett, John Burningham and former Children’s Laureate, Chris Riddell. This year’s winner will be announced on 18 June.

Greenaway’s books are part of SC&A’s extensive collection of 19th and early 20th century children’s books: we hold over 7,000 items, including educational texts, annuals, chapbooks and works by the likes of Frances Hodgson Burnett, G. A. Henty and R. M. Ballantyne.

2017 retrospect

Posted on by

2017 was another busy year in Special Collections and Archives. To celebrate Burns Night, we have curated some of the highlights: collections that were conserved, catalogued, acquired, and the people whom we have been thrilled to meet and work alongside this past year.

February – Peers Symposium attendees

  • March – always a busy month for teaching classes, including the popular Children’s Literature module (see below photo). We also welcomed several visitors with special links to our collections, including a relation of Grace Wilson, the long term partner and wife of John Wyndham.

    March – Dr Esme Miskimmin leading a seminar using SC&A material for ENGL573 Children’s Literature module. ®McCoy_Wynne

  • April – Cunard archivist Siân Wilks worked hard to ensure that the catalogues for the Chairman’s papers (an excellent resource for business and maritime history) are available online; we hosted a meeting of members of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association; our reading room reference collection overhaul was completed, undertaken by our former Assistant Librarian Lucy Evans and Archives Cataloguer Josette Reeves; and Special Collections and Archives Manager Jenny Higham delivered the session ‘Using Primary Sources’ for the Researcher KnowHow programme.
  • May –  filming took place in the archive for the UKTV Yesterday channel documentary series “Nazi Victory: The Post War Plan“, using University Archive material to explore the university life of a German student who was suspected of being a spy during WWII; we also installed a new exhibition: ‘Thomas Rickman (1776-1841) Architect and Antiquary’. The exhibition was curated by University of Liverpool academic Dr Alex Buchanan as part of a larger AHRC funded project. On Light Night, our Science Fiction Librarian Andy Sawyer interviewed John Higgins on stage at the Victoria Gallery & Museum to coincide with the Beyond Dredd and Watchmen: The Art of John Higgins.

    May – Thomas Rickman Exhibition

    May – John Higgins (L) and Andy Sawyer (R) chatting about John Higgin’s work

  • June – the first undergraduate open day of the year, at which staff were thrilled to speak to so many prospective students; and a large amount of Science Fiction material was transported to the Barbican Centre in London for their Into the Unknown exhibition (Science Fiction was certainly well travelled throughout the year in general).
  • July – many boxes from the Liverpool Poets archive were transported to London for the Southbank Centre exhibition The Mersey Sound at 50; our reading room was refreshed through the acquisition of a new microfilm system, new specialist book rests, and new professional photographs were hung on the walls, giving a behind-the-scenes look at our collections and activities.

    July – a photograph of some of the beautiful spines and tooling work in our collections! ®McCoy_Wynne

  • August – we showed off our feline collections and friends for International Cat Day. Thankfully, all the pet cats featured in the blog post are dealing with their new found fame in a very grounded manner. Our University Archivist, Jo Klett, also completed a data cleanse of records to prepare for the launch of a new archives catalogue in the future.

    August – International Cat Day featured Oldham 173, The Tale of Tom Kitten

  • September – aside from greeting students both returning and new for the start of the 2017-18 session, we welcomed our new Graduate Library Assistant Michaela Garland to the team, bade farewell to Beth Williams for the Master of Archives and Records Management course, and former Graduate Library Assistant Robyn Orr took up the new post of Library Assistant, with responsibility for the day-to-day reading room service. The Unsettling Scientific Stories researchers visited us to consult the Science Fiction archive; and we also opened a new exhibition, Roscoe’s University: Liverpool Royal Institution 1817 – 2017, to celebrate the bicentenary of the Liverpool Royal Institution.

    September – Roscoe’s University: Liverpool Royal Institution 1817-2017 exhibition

  • October – we fittingly marked the 50th anniversary of the last voyage of the Queen Mary by showing on our blog the exciting new accessions donated that month; we hosted our Library colleagues to view our some of our new acquisitions in a Staff Open Afternoon; more enthusiastic prospective undergraduates visited us on the second open day of the year; SC&A staff took part choosing our favourite books for the Libraries Week fun on the Library Instagram; and these events were a final hurrah for our Assistant Librarian Lucy Evans, who left us to join the British Library as Curator of Printed Heritage Collections. She leaves a great legacy in many research-enabling catalogue records and on social media, including her work with the ERC funded TIDE project.

    October – D1169/1/2, The Queen Mary puzzle

  • November – we kicked off this month with a bang through a blog post on bonfire night; we also welcomed Niamh Delaney to the team as the Assistant Librarian, who has been very busy cataloguing our Special Collections material and keeping up SCA’s profile on social media since her arrival; we were also pleased to welcome visitor Christopher Graham, Vice President of the Council of the University of Liverpool, to view material from his time as President of the Guild; further, after the event The Bicentenary of Liverpool Royal Institution: A Celebration, we hosted attendees to view our Liverpool Royal Institution exhibition.

    November – Attendees of the Bicentenary event viewing the Liverpool Royal Institution material in our exhibition area.

    November – an eager attendee viewing the Liverpool Royal Institution exhibition.

  • December – and finally, our festive season and winter themed material took centre stage on both the University Library twitter (#livunisca) and a board displayed at the entrance of the Sydney Jones Library; we launched our SC&A merchandise (available to purchase at our reception during opening hours); and our collections reached dizzying heights to celebrate International Mountains Day 2017.

    December – The merchandise table located in the SC&A reception area – available to purchase Monday to Friday, 9:30am – 4:45pm.

    December – SC&A Merchandise, including notebooks, pencils, erasers, magnets, bookmarks, and more!

December – one of our lovely Special Collections items (reference JUV.530) found on the #livunisca twitter advent

We wish our readers and visitors a happy new year and we look forward to welcoming  old and new faces in 2018. To arrange an appointment, please do email us on scastaff@liverpool.ac.uk and our staff will be happy to assist.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November: Guy Fawkes and gunpowder in the collections, from 1679 to 1990

Posted on by

This weekend sees the British tradition of Bonfire Night (or, Guy Fawkes Night) taking place across the country, marking 407 years since the plot to destroy Parliament and assassinate James I was foiled. Although the plot was concocted by 13 members, the name synonymous with the event is Guy Fawkes (or Guido Fawkes); most likely as he was the individual discovered by authorities guarding the gunpowder. The event holds much traditional cultural interest to this day – for instance, The Houses of Parliament are still ceremoniously searched by the Yeomen of the Guard for before the State Opening. To celebrate, we have selected some of the best BANGing works from the collections here at Liverpool University relating to Fawkes and Fireworks.

The Gunpowder-treason … its discovery; and … the proceedings against those horrid conspirators… (1679)

Parliament declared the 5th of November as a day of commemoration and thanksgiving (this was enforced until 1859). For many years to come pamphlets were published on the anniversary date of the event, to remind readers of the consequences of disloyalty to the king and parliament. This pamphlet (SPEC Knowsley 118), published in 1679, printed the confessions of the conspirators and the speech of James I.

The art of making fireworks… (c. 1810)

Although bonfires were a common sight, fireworks were not a popular mode of celebration on the 5th of November until the 1650s onward. This locally printed pamphlet (SPEC G35.14(3)) from the early nineteenth century demonstrated how to make fireworks using gun powder and various other household objects with detailed instructions and colour diagrams (a health and safety nightmare by modern standards).

Guy Fawkes; or, The fifth of November (c. 1840)

This small Protestant chapbook (SPEC Oldham 157(17)) produced in the mid nineteenth century was aimed at retelling the story of Guy Fawkes for children. Chapbooks became a popular method to disseminate tales with a moral meaning to children. The main characters in this particular publication build a guy for a bonfire, and the narrator uses the opportunity to provide a religiously-driven message – the conspirators of 5th of November are presented as Catholic sinners, who acted against the authority of the King.

V for Vendetta (1990)

Skipping forward around 150 years: although still synonymous with celebration, fireworks displays, and bonfires, the anti-establishment sentiments of the 5th of November hold much cultural weight in modern literature and media. V for Vendetta is a DC Comics series by Alan Moore and artist David Lloyd (also developed into a 2006 movie). The series follows V, an Guy Fawkes mask wearing anarchist, who rebels against the dystopian United Kingdom setting of the fascist dictatorship Norsefire. In the Science Fiction Foundation Collections held here, we have a 1990 copy, the first edition printed in the U.K. (PN6737.M66.V46 1990).

As usual, the items featured in this post are available to consult in the reading room here at Special Collections and Archives. Please email scastaff@liverpool.ac.uk for more information. However, our reading room is silent study; please leave all fireworks at home.

New Accessions: Children’s Literature

Posted on by

In our final blog post sharing the bumper crop of new accessions to SC&A over the summer we turn our attention to three additions to the children’s literature collections.

SPEC 2017.a.011

The first is an 1800 copy of Robinson Crusoe, bearing a woodcut frontispiece plate. This copy is printed in Liverpool, and is one of only 7 copies recorded on the ESTC in the British Isles. The item has a contemporary calf binding and is signed in ink on the upper inside board “Alex:r Patton Junr. Sundragen Dec.b 30th 1807”, it also bears the bookmark of William Kidd of Armagh.

The second item is an 1847 copy of “An alphabet of emblems“, with the publisher issued red buckram binding with gilt tooling.

SPEC 2017.a.016

This rather pious set of poems was designed to improve the moral fibre of the juvenile reader via poetry with biblical themes. The devout tone is somewhat improved, for the modern reader, by the images throughout (see below). This work, written by the Church of England clergyman Thomas Boyles Murray, has only four reported copies according to COPAC.

The final item in this round up of new children’s literature is “The little grammarian“, an 1828 book printed by that well known children’s book publisher John Harris.

SPEC 2017.a.021

Another effort from a clergyman (where did they find the time?!), this beautifully illustrated effort by William Fletcher introduces a young audience to the basics of English grammar.

All of these items are now available for consultation in SC&A, you can check our new website for information on how to make an appointment.

International Cat Day

Posted on by

Today we are feline very good in Special Collections and Archives – August 8th 2017 is International Cat Day. As we are cat-loving librarians and archivists, we have selected a taster of our best cat themed items from the Children’s books, Science Fiction Foundation Collections, Cunard Archive, and University Archive fur you to enjoy.

Children’s Literature

SC&A houses more than 7000 pre-First World War children’s books, of which the tale of mischievous cats throughout is a common feature. In The Tale of Tom Kitten, Tom and his siblings Mittens and Moppet play outside in their best clothes, only for them to be stolen by ducks (Oldham 173). Tit, Tiny, and Tittens: The Three White Kittens are a handful, too – they get themselves in all sorts of predicaments (JUV 308:60).

Oldham 173

JUV.308:60

The History of Whittington and His Cat is the feline rags to riches story we are all familiar with. The copy held here in Special Collections is in the form of a chapbook, a small paperback for children which would sell for a cheap price and provide a story with a moral message. This copy also includes the alphabet, allowing children to practice their reading skills from the most basic stage (Oldham 43).

Oldham 43

Science Fiction Foundation Collections

Continuing the theme of children’s literature, the below novel from the Science Fiction collections is written for the young adults audience in the Bantam Action series. In this short novel, robot cats are created to clean-up the city, but are hijacked and used for evil deeds (PR6061.I39.C99 1996). Cats also crop-up regularly in Science Fiction as representation of earth-like normality and domesticity on space ships (for presumably a similar purpose as a ships cat; see below). A personal favorite is Jonesy, Ripley’s ginger tom, from the Alien franchise.

PR6061.I39.C99 1996

Cunard

Cats were commonplace aboard ships for many reasons – they caught vermin, provided comfort to crew, and even predicted storms through their enhanced sensitivity to low pressure environments. Some ships cats have become famous; ‘Unsinkable Sam’, a German cat, survived the sinking of three ships during World War II! From the Cunard archive here, we see below Captain Rostron’s cat and her adorable kittens aboard the Mauretania, from the Cunard Magazine during the mid 1920s (D42/PR5/12).

D42/PR5/12. Cunard Magazine, Vol. 16.

University Archive 

A prominent deposit within the staff papers of the University Archive are the papers of Professor (and Sir) Charles Reilly. One of the most important figures in the history of twentieth-century architecture in Britain, Sir Reilly dominated architectural education and had a profound influence on architectural practice. The below photograph shows Sir Charles Reilly holding a rather uninterested Timoshenko the cat, in the garden of his home in Twickenham during the the World War II era (D938/2/15).

D938/2/15. Photograph by Louise Sedgwick ©

The Special Collections and Archives Cats

From the top left to the bottom right: Audrey and Lilly (Jo Klett, University Archivist), Clara (Katy Hooper, Special Collections Librarian), Chester (Robyn Orr, Library Assistant), Yan, Barry, and Hamilton (Jenny Higham, Special Collections and Archives Manager), and Reginald Ecclefechan (Lucy Evans, Assistant Librarian – Special Collections).

All of these items are available to view right meow in the Special Collections and Archives reading room (except our pet cats – we wish, though…). Please do see our website for more information on visiting us.

World Health Day

Posted on by

In keeping with World Health Day on the 7th of April, we have selected a range of printed material from Special Collections that provides advice on health and wellness, from the 17th century to the 20th century.

The Treasury of Hidden Secrets

How would a 17th century English housewife monitor the health of herself and her family? Homemade remedies made from flora were popular, as shown in the below pamphlet (1653). For instance, wormwood was (and still is) used frequently to settle illnesses of the stomach.

SPEC Knows.pamph 458 (15)

SPEC Knows.pamph 458 (15)

An Essay on the Gout

Among the elites and aspiring middling sorts of the 18th century, taking the waters at Bath was considered an excellent method of promoting one’s good health. The physician George Cheyne published his work, An Essay on the Gout, With an Account of Nature and Qualities of The Bath Waters (second edition) in 1720. Despite suffering from gout and obesity himself, Dr Cheyne promoted vegetarianism and treated famous patients such as Samuel Richardson and Alexander Pope.

SPEC Knows.pamph 221

SPEC Knows.pamph 221

Home Gymnastics for the Well and the Sick

In the later 19th century the popularity of German-influenced “physical culture” led to emphasis on gymnastics in the USA and England. As part of this general trend, Home Gymnastics of the Well and the Sick  (1889) promoted exercises that were simple, without specialist apparatus, for people of varied ages.

SPEC Children EVIII:257

Instructions on how to dad dance – SPEC Children EVIII:257

As always, the items featured in this post are available to view in the Special Collections and Archives reading room. Please see our website for more information.

New Acquisitions: March

Posted on by

Three notable acquisitions in Special Collections and Archives in March, alongside “The horses’s levee” mentioned in the blog post of last week.

“The old cobbler of the cottage: to which is added The idler” are two stories by female authors, Isabelle de Montolieu and Mary Martha Sherwood for children. The item is an excellent addition to our children’s literature collections and also to the number of Sherwood items already available within the collections.

SPEC 2017.a.002



The item is bound in a publisher issued embossed cloth binding with a paper label to the upper board, it also bears the provenance marks of Adriana Lacy and her Aunt, Sarah Lacy.

The embossed cloth binding.

Signed by the Lacy family.

The second item new to SCA this month is “The history of the Fairchild Family” by the ubiquitous Mrs Sherwood. This 1818 volume, bound in tree calf, was in print for nearly a century in numerous editions. It uses the format of the novel to explain the concept of original sin to a juvenile audience.

An introduction to original sin for young children, not recommended for the small people in your life!

The final new acquisition is “The trial of Harry Hardheart: for ingratitude and cruelty to certain individuals of the brute creation”. This item, dated approximately 1820, seeks to caution young people about the dangers of cruelty to animals.

The trial of Harry Hardheart

The item, which is in the original publisher issued blue paper covered boards, is recorded in only 8 locations worldwide.

Remember: be kind to elephants.

As ever, these items are now available for consultation in SCA, for information on how to make an appointment please see our webpages.

A butterfly, a grasshopper and a horse’s levee: William Roscoe in SCA collections

Posted on by

A new acquisition to Special Collections and Archives highlights the importance of William Roscoe to the social and cultural history of Liverpool. Roscoe, known as a leading abolitionist and historian, is perhaps as well known for his poem “The butterfly’s ball and the grasshopper’s feast” which was written for his children and published in 1807. Here in SCA we hold a copy of the 1808 edition. “Butterfly’s ball” was unusual for this period of juvenile literature as instead of seeking to contribute to the moral education of children it sought only to entertain and amuse.

JUV.508:3

In yellow paper wrappers, a common feature of this publisher, John Harris.





A hand coloured plate from the Butterfly’s Ball.

SPEC G8.15

As well as “Butterfly’s ball” SCA includes several items with Roscoe provenance including a 1683 volume bearing his signature and a 1551 Dante thought to have belonged to him.

SPEC H23.26

The new addition to the collections is “The horse’s levee, or, The court of Pegasus“. The title-page states that this rare edition (only 10 copies are recorded) is a companion to “The butterfly’s ball” rather than directly authored by Roscoe, but this perhaps highlights his influence on juvenile literature in this period.

SPEC 2016.t1.03

The yellow wrappers of the publisher John Harris.

“The horse’s levee” is an early astronomy primer for children, the plates show animals with their astronomical parallels and the verses instruct and amuse.

A party we would all like to be at.