(Children’s Book) Lothrop’s Letters / Miscellaneous Poems Composed for the Amusement and Benefit of Pious Youth. Meredith, N.H., 1815?

Item Details

Early New Hampshire Children’s Book

[Scaleboard Binding] Lothrop, Jason. Lothrop’s Letters / Miscellaneous Poems Composed for the Amusement and Benefit of Pious Youth. Meredith, N.H., 1815?

12mo (approx. 5.5 x 3.5 inches); [3], 5–132; [1 blank], [5], 5–31 pp. Two parts in one volume, each with its own title page and separate pagination, divided by a partially excised blank leaf. Text has survived largely intact though with occasional abrasions,  staining, creases and similar signs of age and use.  Printed in a notably large typeface likely intended for ease of reading by young readers. Ownership inscription on front blank: “Andrew Davis’s Property, Age 19.” Copyright leaf dated July 11th in the thirty-ninth year of American independence (1815).

12mo (approx. 5.5 x 3.5 inches); [3], 5–132; [1 blank leaf, partially excised], [5], 5–31 pp. Two parts in one volume, each with a separate title page and pagination: the first comprising epistolary moral essays; the second, devotional verse. Printed in a notably large typeface, likely intended for young or untrained readers. Ownership inscription to front blank: “Andrew Davis’s Property, Age 19.”

Bound in original scaleboard boards, covered in marbled paper (what’s left of it) with a leather spine— a rare survival, offering material evidence of vernacular American bookbinding practices.*

The first part presents a series of fifteen epistolary essays on religious and moral themes—ranging from “Religious Improvement” and “The Omniscience of God” to “Evils of Gaming,” “Profane Swearing,” and “Beauties of Epistolary Writing.” The second part, introduced by its own title page, consists of devotional poems on topics such as “Hope,” “Invitation to View God in His Works,” and “Hymn of Thanksgiving.”

Lothrop, writing from Meredith, New Hampshire, notes in the preface that the letters were originally composed in 1812–1813 for a few young friends and only later published due to their encouraging reception. An instructive survival of early 19th-century rural American youth literature, in an appealing unsophisticated state.

OCLC locates very few institutional holdings.

*Scaleboard—thin, planed wooden boards often derived from locally available hardwoods—served as a practical alternative to pasteboard in early American binding, particularly in rural settings. Such bindings reflect localized economies of production, wherein durable but inexpensive materials were adapted to utilitarian ends with minimal adornment.