Beschreibung:

COLLINS, Benjamin (1715-1785]. Directions for Playing with a Set of Squares, Newly invented for the Use of Children. By which alone, or with very little Assistance, they may learn to spell, read, write, make Figures ... before they are old enough to be sent to School; and that by way of Amusement and Diversion. The Whole contriv'd as to yield as much Entertainment as any of their Play-games. Upon the Plan of Mr. Locke. The Seventh Edition ... London: Printed for J. Newbery, at the Bible and Sun, in St. Paul's Church-Yard; and B. Collins, in Salisbury, [between June 1743 and March 1744] THE DIRECTIONS Demy 64° (60 x 50 mm). Collation: A-B 8 (A1 r title, A1 v blank, A2 r Introduction, B2 r Directions for Playing, B8 r Advertisement. To this 7th Edition the author has added six Squares... ). 16 leaves. Roman type 55 mm. 19 lines. (A few page-numerals and catchwords shaved, slight spotting.) Original marbled stiff paper wrappers. IN ORIGINAL CONDITION THE SQUARES 60 x 50 mm. each. Laid paper mounted on thin card and divided into 24 'squares'. Each card with a lower and upper case letter of the complete alphabet at the top (aA-zZ, omitting jJ and vV, but including wW), an Arabic numeral (1-24) at the bottom and a framed woodcut illustration in the centre, all printed in black; above each cut one line from an alphabet rhyme, incipit : "A was an Admiral over the Main", ending: "Z was a Zealot , and full of Devotion", printed in red. (Lacking 32 squares; cards 9 and 23 bent in half and now backed with modern paper, lower edge of cards 16 and 21 ink-stained, corners rounded, some soiling, but the set IN FINE CONDITION.) A UNIQUE SURVIVAL - recently brought to light in a small New England town - from the incunable period of English children's literature. It is probably the first game of entertainment printed specifically for very small children and JOHN NEWBERY'S EARLIEST PUBLICATION FOR CHILDREN. The game has hitherto been known only from the 21st March 1744 issue of the Penny London Morning Advertiser , where "A Sett of Fifty-six Squares" printed for J. Newbery is advertised at one shilling. Christine Ferdinand, Fellow Librarian of Magdalen College, Oxford, who is currently preparing a study of the career and output of Benjamin Collins, has kindly searched for us the pages of The Salisbury Journal , which was owned by Collins, and found in its 28th June 1743 issue an advertisement for a 50-square version of the same game printed for J. Robinson in London and sold by B. Collins in Salisbury. This important discovery not only dates the 7th edition (the first with 56 squares) to within nine months before March 1744, but also redefines the relative contributions of the two entrepreneurs, Collins and Newbery, to their joint publications for children. In the June 1744 and all later editions of his celebrated A Little Pretty Pocket-Book Newbery so effectively publicised the game of Squares under the heading "The great Q Play" that until now all sets had disappeared without a trace: Who will play at my Squares? This well-invented Game' s design'd To strike the eye and form the Mind ; And he most doubtless aims aright, Who joins Instructions with Delight . It now appears that the game was originally Benjamin Collins's conception. This is perhaps not surprising, because two years later Collins was able to claim that other instrument of learning and play, the battledore, as "my own invention". Finally, with the surfacing of this group of cards together with its miniature book of rules, the nature and appearance of the game are now established. The primary purpose of the Squares is to teach infants to read by the Lockean principle of "cozening children into a knowledge of the letters" by making learning a "sort of play or recreation". This principle (still commonly believed to be a 20th-century invention) is here realised by providing parents - to whom the Directions are addressed - with a game somewhat akin to Scrabble. At its simplest