Knowing, Writing, Dreaming, Dancing: Children's Books at the Grolier Club

The Grolier Club, the oldest active bibliophilic club in the US, was founded in 1884 by a small group of book lovers headed by Robert Hoe III, a manufacturer of printing press machinery and an avid book collector, and was named after Jean Grolier, a statesman, diplomat, and book lover in 16th-century France.

The club regularly mounts exhibitions on literary and bookmaking topics. The current offerings are One Hundred Books Famous in Children’s Literature (until February 7) displayed in the ground floor hall and Quotations of Chairman Mao (until January 10) in the second floor rare book room (free admission).

Grolier Club entrance.

Since 1917 the club occupies a small building on East 60^th Street between Madison and Park Avenues, designed by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, who was also the author of the iconic California Tower in Balboa Park in San Diego. Currently a large-scale construction is going on next door, where a 51-story building is being constructed, using air rights acquired from the Groiler Club and a neighboring church. The facade of No. 47 is also obscured by scaffolding.

One Hundred Books Famous in Children's Literature.
Groiler Club, ground floor hall

The place is charming and the exhibitions are attractive and well attended. The children’s books exhibit is the sixth in the series of “the Grolier Hundreds”, after previous exhibitions focused on English literature (1903), American literature (1946), science (1958), medicine (1994), and fine printed books (1999). The selection of the “most famous 100” can be debated, but the most significant works are represented by delectable old editions going as far back as 17th century. Many of these books come from the Morgan Library and large university libraries. The oldest book on display appears to be Johann Amos Comenius’ Orbis Sensualium Pictus (Visible World in Pictures), an illustrated encyclopedia published in London in 1659, an influential early book in children’s education. Curiously, a number of older books on display are really tiny, as if made for the children’s small hands rather than for their parents’ and grandparents’ presbyopic eyes.

A first edition of Charles Perrault's Histoires ou Contes du tempts passe (left) published in 1697 was illustrated with engravings by Antoine Clouzier (from the Princeton University collection). The French edition is open on the first page of Puss in Boots and the English translation lists The Little Red Riding Hood as the very first tale in the table of contents.

Another famous forest-roaming Hood - Robin Hood - is represented by the 1883 collection of stories, retold for children and illustrated by Howard Pyle (UCLA collection).

The enduring popularity of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, first published in 1719 (Indiana University, top left), is illustrated by a 1835 jigsaw puzzle (Princeton University, right) and a 1920 edition (Toronto Public Library, bottom left).

Another early favorite - Jonathan Swift's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, first published in 1726 (Indiana University, bottom right) - was not originally intended for children, but parts of the story were adapted and published separately as children's books. Next to it is a Wonderland Stamp Case (top right), inscribed "Invented by Lewis Carroll in 1889", which was published along with an essay Eight or Nine Wise Words about Letter Writing.

A tiny 1740 pocket edition of Thomas Boreman's The Gigantick History of the Two Famous Giants sits next to a pair of skates under a copy of 1866 Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge (both from the Ellen Michelson collection).

Giornale per i bambini (1881), a children's periodical in which the character Pinocchio first appeared, shows part 4 of the story titled "La storia di un burattino" with the picture of a puppet (Princeton University).

A letter by J. R. R. Tolkien to G. E. Selby, dated December 14, 1937, after the publication of The Hobbit, says that Tolkien's children "do not wholly approve of their private amusements being turned to cash, even to pay for the excessive costs of their education" (Morgan Library). Appropriately, at least one of Tolkien's children was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford.

A series of color illustrations and cards are examples of lithography. Lithography was invented by a German actor and playwright Alois Senefelder in 1796 and chromolithography for color printing was developed in 1837 by Godefroy Engelmann, eventually acquiring wide use in children's bookmaking.

In the rare book room on the second floor is an incandescent little exhibit of Quotations of Chairman Mao Zedong from the collection of Justin C. Schiller, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the publication. Where else in New York City do you get to see such a collection of the red-backed nostalgia?