The third in my Africa series, The Blasphemers begins with the baptism of Vera and Tolliver's first child--Will. In the upcoming fourth, A Death on the Lord's Day, Will is going on two years old and in the developing story, his mother wants to read him a book. So I went searching for the kind of children's alphabet book that might have been available to Baby Tolliver at the time. Google offered a number of American primers, but only one British one, published in 1899. Fifteen years before my story, but close enough, I thought. Click!
Was I ever wrong! The pub date of the book might be about right. But the jingoistic sentiments? Oh, my! Here are the pages published for the children of the Empire.
Credit where credit is due:
The images come from the University of Florida Library and the George A. Smathers Libraries.
I found them on the Mashable/Retronaut website, which I discovered in the process of this research. I will go back many times. If images from the past entertain you or support your work, so should you!
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