ailed description which Goodrich had found so
fascinating. If a little overdone in this respect, the narrative has
certainly a freshness sadly deficient in many later volumes. Even the
second tale seems to lack the engaging spontaneity of the first, and
already to grow didactic and recitative rather than personal. But both
met with an equally generous and appreciative reception. Parley's
educational tales were undoubtedly the American pioneers in what may be
readily styled the "travelogue" manner used in later years by Elbridge
Brooks and many other writers for little people. These early attempts of
Parley's to educate the young reader were followed by one hundred
others, which sold like hot cakes. Of some tales the sales reached a
total of fifty thousand in one year, while it is estimated that seven
million of Peter Parley's "Histories" and "Tales" were sold before the
admiration of their style and qualities waned.

Peter Parley took his heroes far afield. Jacob Abbott adopted another
plan of instruction in the majority of his books. Beginning in eighteen
hundred and thirty-four with the "Young Christian Series," the Reverend
Mr. Abbott soon had readers in England, Scotland, Germany, France,
Holland, and India, where many of his volumes were translated and
republished. In the "Rollo Books" and "Franconia" an attempt was made to
answer many of the questions that children of each century pour out to
astonish and confound their elders. The child reader saw nothing
incongruous in the remarkable wisdom and maturity of Mary Bell and
Beechnut, who could give advice and information with equal glibness. The
advice, moreover, was often worth following, and the knowledge
occasionally worth having; and the little one swallowed chunks of morals
and morsels of learning without realizing that he was doing so. Most of
both was speedily forgotten, but many adults in after years were
unconsciously indebted to Goodrich and Abbott for some familiarity with
foreign countries, some interest in natural science.

Notwithstanding the immense demand for American stories, there was
fortunately still some doubt as to whether this remodelled form of
instructive amusement and moral story-book literature did not lack
certain wholesome features characteristic of the days when fairies and
folklore, and Newbery's gilt volumes, had plenty of room on the nursery
table. "I cannot very well tell," wrote the editor of the "Fairy
Book"[216-A] in 1836,--"I c