Author: Toy book.
Title: The Hearty Old Boy Who Looked Always the Same.
Description: London, Dean & Son [c1865-70]. 25x17cm colour illustrated boards; advertisement front endpapers and eight leaves, the last mounted inside the back cover, each with a handcoloured wood engraving and verse. A head made of some composition with tiny glass eyes is mounted inside the back board and a hole cut through all pages and the front cover. Inner lining and stitching somewhat loose but holding well enough. Quite a good copy. ¶ This grotesque bit of gimmickry must have been less disturbing when new. Maybe. Two companion titles are listed on the front cover but I don't know that these things took off in any big way. In any case all are rare. I've found a couple of images of one title and they don't look any less worrying than this. I've found no images of another copy of this or the third title. This charts the progress of ploughman Jackey Hodge to Sir John Hodge, mayor of the town. Why he started life a Hearty Old Boy is beyond me.

Keywords: literature fiction poetry childrens books juvenile toy books c19th England illustration