oy books were a major product line for cheap-print publishers. They tend to be short (almost exclusively single-signature) but well-illustrated (using stock cuts already on hand rather than illustrations made specifically for the publication). The self-advertisement on the back cover of this one gives an idea of the selection available from one publisher: Merrill published one-cent toys (which were probably very small, about 3 by 1 and ½ inches, and 8 or 12 pages in length) as well as lines of two-cent, six-cent, and eight-cent toys (each larger in size and probably length) and then a line of hard-bound, multi-signature books; these are significantly not called “toy books” but “Juvenile Books”—and no price is given.

STORIES ABOUT INDIANS is from Merrill’s mid-range, the six-cent toys. Twenty of its twenty-two text pages have an illustration or ornamental initial. The tone of the eleven stories is, perhaps surprisingly, very favorable towards their subjects. While these books were intended primarily for children they were not bought or used only by them: toy books should also be seen as an especially inexpensive line of cheap literature. Additionally it should be remembered that although published in Concord New-Hampshire rather than the great cities of Boston or New-York, books such as this achieved wide distribution by means of itinerant peddlers: they didn’t call them “Yankee Notions” for nothing. Single signature; saddle-stitched.