Advertising Cover-The American Garden

There really is no end to publishing and book/author related ephemera. I thought with the new year I would expand the blog a bit and show some items that are not necessarily related to children's literature.

Here is an advertising cover for a magazine called "The American Garden". This magazine was first published with this name in 1873. Its first iteration was as "Flower Garden" from which it evolved. This journal was bought by Beach, Son and Company which was a seed and bulb dealer. At first it was a quarterly but in 1882 it became a monthly. At that point it went on a popularity roll. It acquired Ladies' Floral Cabinet in 1887. In 1888 it took over The Gardener's Monthly and The Horticulturist. In 1892 it changed its name to American Gardening. After a successful run it stopped publication in 1904.

Of course, for those of you up north you have plenty of time to find some old bound copies of these journals and begin to prepare for your planting season in the months to come.

Estes and Lauriat -Laura E. Edwards Advertising Flyer

Here is a great advertising flyer (3.75 x 5.25) for several Laura E. Richards' books. It is dated in 1881. This piece from the Estes and Lauriat publishing house is very similar to others of this same era I have seen from this house. (For the ZigZag books, Knockabout Books, and Travels by Ober.)


Laura E. Richards (1850-1943) was a prolific authoress of children's books. The most famous work was Captain January which was made into a film starring Shirley Temple. She was born in Boston. Her parents were Julia Ward Howe, a very well known writer and author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic and Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, the managing director of the Perkins Institute for the Blind.


She was married in 1871 to Henry Richards who was still her husband at the time of her death. Her works initially were penned to help with the family finances. Her first work was jingles published by St. Nicholas (magazine). Her first book was Five Little Mice in a Mouse Trap published by Estes and Lauriat in 1880. Although the vast majority of her work was for children, she also wrote several biographies. Her autobiography "Stepping Westward" was published in 1931.