Fourth Day of Advent

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The children had been up early in the morning, and beginning to roll a snowball about they very soon saw that at every roll they gave it got bigger and bigger, and at last got so big just by the cottage door that they couldn’t move it, and then it stood right in the way, so that they couldn’t get in and their mother couldn’t get out.

From ‘Snowball’ by Edric Vredenburg, illustrated by Lizzie Mack, volume 3 in ‘The Daisy Chain Library’ published by Ernest Nister, 1891

Lizzie Mack (1858-ca. 1905) was a highly successful children’s book illustrator. Her trademark winsome children express the sentimental portrayal of children in popular art at that time. This book was published by Ernest Nister (1841-1906), a German lithographer and printer of children’s books, greetings card, postcards and calendars based in Nuremberg.

 

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Third Day of Advent

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O is for Orange – good, eaten in reason,
P for Plum Pudding, the crown of the season.

From “Father Christmas’ ABC” illustrated by Alfred J. Johnson, published by F. Warne & Co., 1894

I love the bright, cheerful warmth of this illustration – I can almost smell the tangy scent of those oranges. Is the little dog startled? Or off on its own harum scarum adventure?

 

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Second Day of Advent

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Come to the window, little folks,
And read these tiny Story-books!

From ‘Snow-Flakes and the Stories they Told the Children’, by Matilda Betham-Edwards, illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), published ca. 1862

 

This is my personal favourite, it’s by Phiz, Dickens’ illustrator. I love his pictures full of charming, quirky detail. The elves in this are delightfully mischievous.

 

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First Day of Advent

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And the games that we had, oh! they were so nice,
Such sleighing and skating and bowls on the ice!

From ‘The Twigs, or, Christmas at Ruddock Hall’, illustrated by Robert Dudley, published by Castell Brothers.

 

I thought it would be nice to create an Advent Calendar, by posting an illustration each day from Victorian children’s books from the Tower Project collection I worked on at Cambridge University Library. I hope you like them as much as I do.

 

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