COMENIUS, John Amos (“Johann Amos KOMENSKY” or “Ján Amos”) (1592-1670). Orbis Sensualium Pictus: Hoc est Omnium Principalium in Mundo Rerum, et in Vita Actionum, Pictura & Nomenclatura. Charles Hoole, translator. Alexander Anderson, illustrator. New York: T. & J. Swords, 1810.

12mo (173 x 104 mm). Numerous woodcuts. (Some marginal chipping, some creasing or browning.) Original publisher’s sheep gilt, edges sprinkled brown (rubbing, joints starting, a few wormholes to spine); quarter calf gilt folding case.

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF THE FIRST CHILDREN’S PICTURE BOOK, ENGRAVINGS BY THE FIRST WOOD-ENGRAVER IN THE UNITED STATES. “The World Around Us in Pictures was the first European schoolbook based on the principle of what is now called visual education. Each page consists of a woodcut of some subject or object and, underneath, a bilingual Latin-German text in two columns, which in simple terms explains the picture, with numerical references to the items shown… it is the combination of text and picture which has made Orbis Pictus a milestone in the history of education” (PMM). Comenius was an important figure in the field of education. He wrote many books on education, many were translated into a variety of languages, such as the present work, which was translated from the original Latin and High Dutch by Charles Hoole in 1659 from the twelfth London edition with corrections and enlarged. “His universal importance rests on the pedagogic theories and writings of educations from the ages of four to twenty-four (Didactica, written 1632, published 1657)” (PMM). Anderson was a self-taught wood-engraver and produced the first wood-engravings in the United States. Muir, English Children’s Books, pp. 217-218; PMM 139. Not in Rosenbach or Welch.

Property from the Collection of Norman and Florence Blitch

COMENIUS, John Amos (“Johann Amos KOMENSKY” or “Ján Amos”) (1592-1670). Orbis Sensualium Pictus: Hoc est Omnium Principalium in Mundo Rerum, et in Vita Actionum, Pictura & Nomenclatura. Charles Hoole, translator. Alexander Anderson, illustrator. New York: T. & J. Swords, 1810.