f
fifty-four. Yet before his death he had proved his talent for producing
at least fifty original little books, to be worth considerably more than
the Biblical ten talents.

No sketch of Newbery's life should fail to mention another large factor
in his successful experiment--the insertion in the "London Chronicle"
and other newspapers of striking and novel advertisements of his gilt
volumes, which were to be had for "six-pence the price of binding." An
instance of his skill appeared in the "London Chronicle" for December
19, 1764-January 1, 1765:

"The Philosophers, Politicians, Necromancers, and the learned in every
faculty are desired to observe that on the 1st of January, being New
Year's Day (oh, that we may all lead new lives!) Mr. Newbery intends to
publish the following important volumes, bound and gilt, and hereby
invites all his little friends who are good to call for them at the
Bible and Sun in St. Paul's Churchyard, but those who are naughty to
have none."[54-A]

Christopher Smart, his brother-in-law, who was an adept in the art of
puffing, possibly wrote many of the advertisements of new books--notices
so cleverly phrased that they could not fail to attract the attention of
many a country shop-keeper. In this way thousands were sold to the
country districts; and book-dealers in the American commonwealths,
reading the English papers and alert to improve their trade, imported
them in considerable quantities.

After Newbery's death, his son, Francis, and Carnan, his stepson,
carried on the business until seventeen hundred and eighty-eight; from
that year until eighteen hundred and two Edward Newbery (a nephew of the
senior Newbery), who in seventeen hundred and sixty-seven had set up a
rival establishment, continued to publish new editions of the same
little works. Yet the credit of this experiment of printing juvenile
stories belongs entirely to the older publisher. Through them he made a
strong protest against the reading by children of the lax chap-book
literature, so excellently described by Mr. John Ashton in "Chap-Books
of the Eighteenth Century;" and although his stories occasionally
alluded to disagreeable subjects or situations, these were unfortunately
familiar to his small patrons.

The gay little covers of gilt or parti-colored paper in which this
English publisher dressed his books expressed an evident purpose to
afford pleasure, which was increased by the many illustrations that
adorned th