A trip to the Book Bear in West Brookfield, MA never disappoints. A warehouse of antiques, rarities and just plain used books, The Book Bear has books on every subject imaginable. It’s where I found the book on Nonquitt which showed rare photos of Louisa plus her summer house (now sadly destroyed by fire).
It’s a long ride out, about 45 minutes, but the countryside is beautiful. And there’s always a treat waiting for me. Here is today’s:
Note the date:
This compilation, published in 1888, contains some of the last stories submitted by Louisa before she died. Madeleine Stern’s comprehensive bibliography shows that “Trudell’s Siege,” the story found in the April issue, was the last children’s story submitted while she was alive.
I haven’t had the time to read the stories yet (the print is so small!) but here are how the stories appeared in the book. This is a story called “Pansies:”
And here is “Trudell’s Siege:”
It’s amazing to hold in my hands the last story submitted by Louisa herself. <sigh> She brings me such pleasure! 🙂
It’s interesting to note too how small and dense the print is. The pages are oversized and they are not all illustrated. I imagine it would hard to find a children’s magazine today that featured very many (if any) pages of straight, small text set in two columns.
It begs the question: who truly is the more educated, today’s children, or yesterday’s?
Click to Tweet & Share: A great find! See the actual printing of Louisa’s last children’s story in St. Nicholas Magazine http://wp.me/p125Rp-1BE
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I collect bound issues of “St. Nicholas” and have a whole set from 1873 to 1931. (It went on til 1940, but was sold to another publisher and the magazine wasn’t as good.) I am continually amazed by the quality of the writing, which to me is on the level of today’s adults. Similar children’s magazines that I have a few copies of, like “Wide Awake” and “Our Young Folks,” are also at this level. I have learned so much from “St. Nicholas”! In one issue I even got to read about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1883 which caused the death of my great grandmother.
Wow, that is amazing!
A wonderful / lucky find. I have never heard of this story. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks!
I’ve seen those bound copies of St. Nicholas in other used/rare book sales but sadly they’re beyond my budget. I have to settle for digitized copies.
I got lucky on this one, it was cheap! Could be because the binder was not in great shape.
Congrats on the great find! How spectacular!
Thanks!
Oh, how cool! I have a digitized copy, but would LOVE to have a physical one. Here’s the link to Google’s copy if anyone wants to read it online: http://books.google.com/books?id=16EzAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Pansies is on page 12, and Trudel’s Siege is on page 421. Plus there are a couple of other LMA-related pieces in there if you do a search in the box to the left.
Thank you for sharing!! I´ll like to read the story with my students!
Is it available in the web?
Yes, you can find it here: This is the complete year of St. Nicholas, it had things my volume didn’t have – search through the table of contents for other goodies!
I haven’t gotten my hands on St. Nicholas yet but I found some great Louisa books at The Barrow bookstore in Concord. I got two volumes of Aunt Jo’s Scrapbag for Christmas plus a book about The Wayside. As of the Saturday before Christmas they also had a nice print of Orchard House.
Sweet! Great Christmas presents.