Pictorial Primer

Printed by J. Vancourt. Running title: Pictorial reader and spelling book. 12mo, 60pp. Awkwardly, amateurly bound into cloth-backed plain orange boards, exposed along the front hinge. Very faint pencil signature to the front flyleaf, nearly detached. Fair to Good. Woodcut vignettes appear on almost every page, mostly featuring animals and childhood scenes. One has a boy carrying a bat that appears to be shaped more for baseball than cricket. It appears opposite a vignette of a “Poor Woman” which mentions her husband “was killed last spring in the war,” presumably the Mexican-American War.  Intended with some application to British society, the printed alphabet includes the &, $ and £ signs and currency conversions are listed by state on the last page. Several pages of weights and measures for quite an assortment of materials–including book sizes! OCLC lists 1 copy at the Free Library of Philadelphia. American Primers 745 lists a variant with “Pictorial reader and speller” as the running title. Provenance note tucked in: "Pictorial Primer Belonged to Sarah B. Worcester b. June 5, 1853 d. March 29, 1857"