As has been noted before, Jacob Abbott was an incredibly prolific author juveniles in the 19th century. The ten volume Franconia Series was one of his series.These moralistic stories revolve around Beechnut. He is a youngster from Switzerland who lives in the White Mountains and interacts with the other characters in the series.
The books as noted here were initially published in the 1850's by Harper and Brothers. As opposed to many of the other Abbott books , these stories were only published by Harper and Brothers (in the US), Allman published the English editions.
1. Malleville 1850
2. Mary Bell 1850
3. Ellen Linn 1852
4. Wallace 1850
5. Beechnut 1850
6. Stuvyesant 1853
7. Agnes 1853
8. Mary Erskine 1850
9. Rodolphus 1852
10. Caroline 1853
Later between 1878 and 1881 the books were reprinted by Harpers. At that time there were only 5 Franconia books. Each new book had two of the early books combined into one volume. They were as follows.
Beechnut/Rodolphus
Ellen Linn/Stuyvesant
Caroline/Agnes
Malleville/Wallace
Mary Erskine/Mary Bell
Two late editions were published by Harper and Brothers. The green book with the peripheral cover decoration was published in the early 1900's. The books with the reading boy was also published in the early 1900's but the books of this format had only one Franconia book within it as opposed to the two story books.
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This cover design is OMNIpresent, appearing on books whose titles bear no relevance to the picture. A colleague of mine here at UNC Greensboro and I keep planning an exhibit of covers TOTALLY misrepresenting the content, tentatively called " WHAT were they thinking??"
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorites is "Famous American Naval Commanders" which has at least two curious covers: one of a boy and his dog, walking in the woods, and the other of a cowboy on a bucking bronco in the middle of the American West somewhere.
Another cover showing two boys by a tent in the woods, one of them shooting at a deer, is titled "Boy heroes of the Bible".
Go, as they say, figure.