The Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books, Vol. 1 (1566-1910) , Vol. 2 (1476-1910)

Third edition. 1975. Reprint (and best) edition with additional corrections of the 1958 first edition and 1966 second edition.

Judith St. John, prepared by. An introduction by Edgar Osborne. 6-1/2 x 9-3/4 inches. xxiv, (1),561pp.(1). 12 colour plates, 38 black and white plates. Pictorial cloth boards with gilt titles on green cloth spine. 3,000 titles. Very good condition. In 1958, in accordance with the terms of the donation, the Toronto Public Library published Volume I of the Osborne Collection catalogue, listing and describing a representative selection of . The second volume of the Osborne Collection Catalogue, in 1975, describes an additional , selected from accessions to the collection in the past twenty years.

Volume II:

First edition. 1975. 6-1/2 x 9-3/4 inches. xii, (1), page 563-1138. 2,600 titles

Judith St. John, prepared by with the assistance of Dana Tenny and Hazel I. Mactaggart. An introduction by Edgar Osborne. Frontispiece portrait of Edgar Osborne. Pictorial cloth boards with gilt titles on green cloth spine. 3,000 titles. Very good condition. Continues the cataloguing procedures, and retains features, that made its predecessor such a useful reference work. The form of the basic entry in the catalogue is a full transcription, with minor exceptions, of a book's title page: no attempt is made to indicate line-endings or to follow capitalization, for example; and quotation, specific addresses of publishers, and prices (alas) are omitted. Dates of prefaces, plates, inscriptions, and names and numbers of series, as these appear in the work, are included; and at the suggestion of booksellers, who commented on the omission from Volume I, the number of plates is noted, if that information does not appear on the title page. As in Volume I, there is an appendix, arranged in chronolgoical order, of editions of books published before 1800; and the general index lists authors, translators, and titles, as well as editors and series. Among the notable rarities that have been added and that are listed in Volume II, are a 1660 edition of Thomas White's Little Book for Little Children; six volumes in the "Gigantick Histories" series published by Thomas Boreman from 1740-43; a first edition of James Janeway's extraordinarily popular Token for Children; and, from Dr. Osborne , Hans Holbein's Images in the Old Testament (1549). A copy of Historia di Lionbruno (1476?), which gives the first known mention in print of the motif of seven-league boots, replaces an edition of Aesop's Fables published in 1566, as the oldest imprint in the collection. The bulk of the material added to the collection, however, is, as one would expect, of nineteenth century origin.