A Little Pretty Pocket-Book
A
Little Pretty Pocket-Book, intended for the Amusement of Little Master Tommy
and Pretty Miss Polly with Two Letters from Jack the Giant Killer is the title of a 1744 children's
book by British publisher John
Newbery.
History
It
is generally considered the first children's book, and consists of simple
rhymes for each of the letters of the alphabet. To market the book to the children of the day, the book
came with either a ball for a boy, or a pincushion for a girl. The book was
very popular in England, and earned Newbery much fame; eventually the Newbery
Medal was named after him. The book was
re-published in Colonial America
in 1762. Dr A S W Rosenbach called this book, "One of the most influential
and important books in the history of juvenile literature."
Description
The
book includes a woodcut
of stool-ball among other period games, and includes a rhyme entitled
"Base-Ball." This is the first known reference to
"base-ball" or "baseball" in print, though it actually
meant the game rounders,
an ancestor of modern baseball.
Of baseball's English origin: "The game of Rounders has been played in England since Tudor Times, with the
earliest reference being in 1744 in "A Little Pretty Pocketbook"
where it is called baseball." "It is a striking and fielding team
game, which involves hitting a small hard leather cased ball with a round
wooden or metal bat and then running around 4 bases in order to score."
References
· Welsh, C. (1885). A
Bookseller of the Last Century: Being Some Account of the Life of John Newbery,
and of the Books He Published, with a Notice of the Later Newberys. Opie collection of children's literature ; 041:070.
Griffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh, successors to Newbery & Harris.
Retrieved 24 December 2016.
· · Wolf, E.;
Academy, R.I. (2009). Todd
Lecture Series (in French). Cambridge Scholars
Publishing. p. 92. ISBN 978-1-151-45471-3. Retrieved 24 December 2016.
· · "Coaches
Want to See You Play Against Better Competition". College Athletic Scholarships. College Sports Recruiting.
21 September 2012. Retrieved 24 December 2016.
·
A Little pretty pocket-book. : a facsimile with an introductory
essay and bibliography. 8 December 2016. OCLC 296996.
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