five the "Annual" was in full swing as a
popular publication. Then an international book was issued, "The
American Juvenile Keepsake," edited by Mrs. Hofland, the well-known
writer of English stories for children. Mrs. Hofland cried up her wares
in a manner quite different from that of the earlier literary ladies.
"My table of contents," she wrote in her introduction, "exhibits a list
of names not exceeded in reputation by any preceding Juvenile Annual;
for, although got up with a celerity almost distressing in the hurry it
imposed, such has been the kindness of my literary friends, that they
have left me little more to wish for." Among the English contributors
were Miss Mitford, Miss Jean Roberts, Miss Browne, and Mrs. Hall, the
ablest writers for English children, and already familiar to American
households.

Mrs. Hofland, herself, wrote one of its stories, noteworthy as an early
attempt of an English author to write for an American juvenile public.
She found her theme in the movement of emigration strong in England just
then among the laboring people. No amount of discouragement and bitter
criticism of the United States by the British press was sufficient to
stem appreciably the tide of laborers that flowed towards the country
whence came information of better wages and more work. Mrs. Hofland,
although writing for little Americans, could not wholly resist the
customary fling at American life and society. She acknowledged, however,
that long residence altered first impressions and brought out the kernel
of American character, whose husk only was visible to sojourners. She
deplored the fact that "gay English girls used only to the polished
society of London were likely to return with the impression that the men
were rude and women frivolous." This impression the author was inclined
to believe unjust, yet deemed it wise, because of the incredulous
(perhaps even in America!), to back her own opinion by a note saying
that this view was also shared by a valued friend who had lived fourteen
years in Raleigh, South Carolina.

Having thus done justice, in her own eyes, to conditions in the new
country, Mrs. Hofland, launched the laborer's family upon the sea, and
followed their travels from New York to Lexington, Kentucky, at that
time a land unknown to the average American child beyond some hazy
association with the name of Daniel Boone. It was thus comparatively
safe ground on which to place the struggles of the immigrant