Collections of poetry for children were very common in the early 20th century and were often, as is the case with this volume, extensively illustrated with line drawings and color plates. Many of the poems in this book are by poets who are still known today: Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, Coleridge, Keats, Poe, and Whitman. Not surprisingly women poets are not well represented here. The NH State Library has a variety of these children's poetry collections dating from various periods. I looked through several before selecting this one and was struck by the fact that the later editions (from the mid-twentieth century) included many more poets that I had not heard of and left out quite a few of the poets mentioned above. (Women were not much better represented though).
This volume was part of a series edited by New Hampshire author Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
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