 Page of a Dean & Son alphabet toy book, published c. 1847 | |
| Founded | c. 1800 |
|---|---|
| Founders | Thomas Dean |
| Country of origin | England |
| Headquarters location | London |
| Key people | Thomas Dean, founder; George Dean, partner (1847) |
| Fiction genres | Novelty children's books |
Dean & Son was a 19th-century London publishing firm, best known for making and mass-producing moveable children's books and toy books, established around 1800.[1] Thomas Dean founded the firm, probably in the late 1790s, bringing to it innovative lithographic printing processes. By the time his son George became a partner in 1847,[2] the firm was the preeminent publisher of novelty children's books in London.[1] The firm was first located on Threadneedle Street early in the century; it moved to Ludgate Hill in the middle of the century, and then to Fleet Street from 1871 to 1890.[3] In the mid-20th century the firm published books by Enid Blyton[2] and children's classics in the Dean's Classics series.[4]
Dean & Son were one of the first firms to introduce pop-up books for children—which they were able to publish in large numbers. In the 1860s they invented "living picture" books, "animated" by pulling a tab and moving the pictures. Their "pantomime books" were books where the scenes changed in the pictures, created by the use of different page sizes.[1] The books were characterized by engraved illustrations (using technology developed in Germany in the 1790) that were then lavishly hand-coloured.[1] By the end of the 1850s they published more than 200 titles, each book of equal size, each costing sixpence.[2]
The books' subject matter varied, from fairy tales, to stories about anthropomorphized animals, to well-known stories such as Robinson Crusoe.[1] Generally, the books were meant to entertain rather than to be didactic or provide instruction, although some of their books, such as Dean's Moveable Dogs Party, showed upper class Victorian class divisions and taught social mores.[5]
The books were expensive to make: they were printed on letterpress, then hand-coloured in "pochoir" stencil method, and most likely printed in limited editions.[5] Nevertheless, the firm was the first to bring to the mass market moving picture books,[1] having up to 50 titles of moveable books in print by the latter half of the 19th century, making them leading publisher of these books.[5]
Children found the moveable books entertaining and were induced to play with the clever mechanisms,[5] Various innovative types of mechanisms were designed in Dean's workshops. "Peep show" style consisted of cutting out sections of illustrated scenes, stacking and then folding flat. Turning the page caused the attaching ribbon be pulled and a three-dimensional scene popped up. "Living pictures" were animated by pulling a tab to move or "animate" different parts of the scene on the page. "Pantomime books" were made with pages of varying sizes; turning a page caused the scene to change. These were released in the "Home Pantomime Toy Book" series that included sumptuously coloured and illustrated chromolithographs, and became popular editions, such as their printing of "Beauty and the Beast".[1]
The pricing varied from simple toy books that sold for sixpence to elaborately quarto sized coloured moving books that sold for 5 shillings, with the most of titles selling for 1 shilling, sixpence. Many of their books were sold in a series with names such as the "Royal Picture Toy Books", (priced at 1 shilling, sixpence), Aunt Fanny's "Pictures to Amuse with Tales to Please" series, (priced at 5 shillings),[6] the "Miss Mary Merryheart" series,[7] "Little Plays for Little People" series (written by Julia Corner[8] and illustrated by Alfred Henry Forrester), and their popular "New Scenic Series" introduced in the mid-1850s.[1]
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Cooking Fast and Fresh with West: Episode 1
Transcription
So it's harvest time, we're up in Canada, and there's a lot of really amazing, delicious food that is in the stores right now, and we're just gonna go make a meal. Uh, we're gonna go shopping and get some of this really fresh, yummy stuff, and show you how quick and easy a really yummy fall harvest meal can be. Right, Bug? No. Westy, what shoes do you wanna wear? Shoes. Shoes. You wanna wear your boots? Can you put 'em on? Yeah. OK You wanna bring the stroller or the bike? I need to remember to get the keys so we can get back in. You have the key? No. Uh-oh. West, we're going to the grocery store. Come on, let's go. Can you put down your foot? So, West, what do you want to have for dinner? Ok, do you want to go get some food? [French singing on soundtrack] Ok, let's go get some other stuff, Westy. A plum, too? Ok. Oh, and some brussels sprouts? Just one? Put it in the same bag as this brussels sprout. Let's find some other stuff. Come on. Ok, but we already got one of those. Remember? A giant cheese. I think we have enough cheese, probably. No? Some vitamins? Ok, that'll make us strong for tomorrow. Can you put that in the basket, and then we'll go to the check-out right now. Yeah, let's go. Come on. We gotta make dinner. Westy, let's go. This way. Just one Westy. You just put one in. Not... not two. Nope. Just- just one. Ten! Ten? Yeah. Ten? That's a lot. West? We have to wait to put our stuff up there, until those other guys are done. So, we have here, um... a pound ... butter... Mini Grills Legacy brand meat product. Solid assorted cheeses... One green pepper... Here you go. One brussels sprout... Three quarters of a brussels sprout. One apple... and some Adult Centrum vitamins for seniors, 50 and up. That'll come in handy, sooner or later. So, let's get started. You ready to cook? Yep. All right. I guess we need to put on a pot of water... Because we'll clearly be having pasta for dinner tonight. Oh, there's peppers in here. The challenge is to use every ingredient in some way. Everything we bought will be used. You want to put some of that on the nachos? You can if you want. Great! Wow, these cherry tomatoes look like they're really in season. Yum. Is it in season? Yeah? It's in season! You really wanna mash up the butter when you're making this sort of autumn pasta. Otherwise you get clumps of butter... in your meal. Um... And this phase is really important so you wanna make sure you get all of the lumps out of the butter. You can't take shortcuts on this one. This part can take 5 to 7 minutes. Um, but it's worth it. It is definitely worth it when you're done. You wanna test the water out, with just a few noodles at first, and that's an important step. Also, it's a good idea to put some of the uh, noodles into all of the pans on the stove. Good shot. Yeah, ok. And this is the final spiral pasta. It's different from the other pastas, because it's made of spirals. Great. And again, you wanna test it out first. You can't dump it all in at once. You want to do a single piece of vegetable at a time. Ok, can you put this, this mystery meat in that pot? We're not sure what it is. I don't think we're going to be able to eat all of it tonight. So, what we're doing is we're combining meat sauce in a can with the mystery meat that we don't know what it is. And, you always want to do that again in its own pot. Put some of the salt in, into the pan. And all you do is you take and spoon that back out again. Um, just to give a zest of salt in that part of the pan. OK, those hors d'ouevres look great! This is an important step. You want to gently tweeze the florets of broccoli. Makes it much more tender, you don't have to steam it for nearly as long. You ready to steam it? See? That's the point. You gotta keep tweezing. Keep tweezing for longer than you think you need to. I'd like this to just basically be cooked into oblivion. If you see any colour in a meat like that whatsoever it's basically not safe. That's right. And if there's any extra on your hands, you can just wipe it right on your shirt. 'Cause it will stick to you. That's right. That's what we wear the shirts for. Tell me when. Now would you be... are you going to be trying the mystery meat? The meat in the bag? Yep? Ok. We forgot the dip! Dip! For our hors d'oeuvres. Good. Hot! It's not hot. The meat sauce... Also good. I don't think it's in season. Um, but that... I would go for that vegetarian one. Yeah, you're getting into it. Well this has been a really, really, uh, lovely, quick way to whip together a dinner in the autumn. Get some fresh foods, some not so fresh foods. Put them all together, and, uh, that's how we make dinner. Right? You want another bite? [West babbling] This is only for those of us who are 50 and older, West. You want help?
Moveable pictures gallery
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Folded illustration showing Cinderella trying on the shoe -
The picture shows Cinderella with the Prince when refolded
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h University of North Texas Library University of Texas Libraries. Retrieved January 24, 2013
- ^ a b c Carpenter, Humphrey, and Mari Prichard. (1984). The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-211582-0, 143
- ^ "Historical Children's Literature Collection". University of Washington Libraries. Retrieved January 24, 2013
- ^ Dean's Classics (Dean & Son Ltd.) - Book Series List, publishinghistory.com. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
- ^ a b c d University of Virginia Retrieved January 24, 2013.
- ^ The Publisher's Circular and General Record of British and Foreign Literature, Vol. 42, Dec. 1879, Samson Low. 723.
- ^ "The Collection of the Lilly Library". Indiana University, Bloomington Illinois. Retrieved January 24, 2013.
- ^ Hahn, Daniel (2015-03-26). The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-105726-7.
External links
- Works by Dean & Son at Digital Archive (Toronto Public Library)
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This page was last edited on 14 December 2023, at 09:23