Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes

A large folio (252 x 320mm high) book in a coloured, soft cover of linen backed with card on the outside and paper on the inside. Twelve pages, six being full colour whole page illustrations and six with coloured subsidiary drawings and text, to portray popular juvenile subjects. The internal pages are also of linen faced with paper on both sides. The back cover bears full colour illustrations of the seven books of the “Royal Toy Books” series. The front and back inner covers portray an alphabet in red and black. The book is in Good condition, with some wear on the corners and the lower staple has worn through the paper of the inner back. A neat but very faint owner’s inscription at the top of the front cover and a light pencil scribble appears in the centre. Compared to the London Toy Series, the Royal Toy Books seem to be fairly scarce.

Mrs Valentine wrote several extensive series of books for children, which were published by Frederick Warne and Co. These series included Aunt Louisa’s London Toy Books, which numbered well over a hundred different subjects, Aunt Louisa’s Sunday Books and the Aunt Louisa’s Royal Toy Books, of which there appear to have been only seven in the series.