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Ralph's book
Title : Ralph's book Ralph's book
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Creator : Vaux, Frances Bowyer, 1785-1854
Source : The dew-drop; or, the summer morning's walk
Place Of Creation : London
Publisher : Printed for Darton Harvey and Darton Gracechurch-street
Date of creation : 1816
Additional Creator : Lucy Collection
Format : Book
Contributor : State Library of South Australia
Catalogue record
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Donated by : Lucy Family
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Description :

The Dew-drop or the summer morning's walk belonged to Ralph Everard Lucy and was given to him in 1821 when he was five or six years old. When he migrated to South Australia in 1854 with his wife Eliza, the book, no doubt one of a number, came with them. It would have been used by their own children, and perhaps a later generation before being donated to the State Library as part of the Lucy Collection.

The book in a gentle manner gives lessons in nature study, as Edward and his sister Harriet take their morning walk with their father.

When his father rouses him in the morning Edward exclaims 'Oh, no Papa. I must not be a sluggard' (p. 3). Here he alludes to the poem by Isaac Watts:

'Tis the voice of the sluggard; I heard him complain,
"You have wak'd me too soon, I must slumber again."
and continues by saying he 'would rather be like the little busy bee, ...' (Watts p.112)

Watts' Divine and moral songs for children were first published in 1715 and remained popular throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

Subjects
Related names :

Lucy, Ralph Everard, 1816-1908

Further reading :

Barr, John. Illustrated children's books, London; Dover, NH: British Library, c1986

Darton, F. J. Harvey. Children's books in England: five centuries of social life, Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982

Muir, Percy H. English children's books, 1600 to 1900, London: Batsford, [1954]

Whalley, Joyce Irene. Cobwebs to catch flies: illustrated books for the nursery and schoolroom, 1700-1900, London: Elek, 1974

Watts, Isaac, Divine songs: attempted in easy language for the use of children London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1839

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