he American Newbery_

When John Mein was forced to close his London Book-Store in Boston and
to return to England in 1770, the children of that vicinity had need to
cherish their six-penny books with increased care. The shadow of
impending conflict was already deep upon the country when Mein departed;
and the events of the decade following seventeen hundred and
seventy-three--the year of the Boston Tea-Party--were too absorbing and
distressing for such trifling publications as toy-books to be more than
occasionally printed. Indeed, the history of the American Revolution is
so interwoven with tales of privation of the necessities of life that it
is astonishing that any printer was able to find ink or paper to produce
even the nursery classic "Goody Two-Shoes," printed by Robert Bell of
Philadelphia in seventeen hundred and seventy-six.

In New York the conditions were different. The Loyalists, as long as the
town was held by the British, continued to receive importations of goods
of all descriptions. Among the booksellers, Valentine Nutter from time
to time advertised children's as well as adults' books. Hugh Gaine
apparently continued to reprint Newbery's duodecimos; and, in a rather
newer shop, Roger and Berry's, in Hanover Square, near Gaine's, could be
had "Gilt Books, together with Stationary, Jewelry, a Collection of the
most books, bibles, prayer-books and patent medicines warranted
genuine."

Elsewhere in the colonies, as in Boston, the children went without new
books, although very occasionally such notices as the following were
inserted in the newspapers:

_Just imported and to be Sold by Thomas Bradford_

At his Book-Store in Market-Street, adjoining the Coffee-house

_The following Books_ ...

Little Histories for Children,

Among which are, Book of Knowledge, Joe Miller's Jests, Jenny
Twitchells' ditto, the Linnet, The Lark (being collections of best
Songs), Robin Redbreast, Choice Spirits, Argalus & Parthenia,
Valentine and Orson, Seven Wise Masters, Seven Wise Mistresses,
Russell's seven Sermons, Death of Abel, French Convert, Art's
Treasury, Complete Letter-Writer, Winter Evening Entertainment,
Stories and Tales, Triumphs of Love, being a Collection of Short
Stories, Joseph Andrews, Aesop's Fables, Scotch Rogue, Moll
Flanders, Lives of Highwaymen, Lives of Pirates, Buccaneers of
America, Robinson Crusoe, Twe