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.

A PEEP AT THE OLD WORLD is from Merrill’s mid-range, the six-cent toys (as is our item No. 6601, “Stories About Indians.” All but one of its twenty-four text pages have an illustration. The countries or regions described (in most cases, with surprising accuracy) include Africa and the Far East; the shortest is unsurprisingly devoted to Japan: “The Japan isles lie on the eastern border of Asia. The Emperor of Japan will let no people from Europe come into his country. The people have the art of making very beautiful gardens.” 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. One of the most difficult problems 21st century reenactors face in developing a realistic first-person impression is pruning out their own knowledge of aspects of the 19th century which most 19th century people did not have. Books such as this will help develop an accurate perception of what average 19th century people knew about the larger world—by learning it the way they did. 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.