A Book for Jennifer, (Cotsen 7267)

With this newspaper advertisement in 1764, the famous publisher John Newbery launched five new books.  Naturally only good children who visited his shop in St. Paul’s Church Yard would be allowed to purchase them:

The Philosophers, Politicians, Necromancers, and the Learned in every Faculty are desired to observe, that on the First of January, being New Year’s Day (Oh that we may all lead new Lives!) Mr. Newbery intended to publish the following important Volumes, bound and gilt…

1. The Renowned History of Giles Gingerbread, a little Boy who lived upon Learning
2. The Easter Gift; or the Way to be very good
3. The Whitsuntide Gift, or the Way to be very happy
4. The Valentine’s Gift, or how to behave with Honour, Integrity, and Humanity; Very useful in a trading Nation
5. The Fairing; or a Golden Toy for Children of all Sizes and Denominations.

The second, third, and fourth titles were integral parts of a plan to make young people good people in spite of the disadvantage of growing up in a degenerate decade.  In an essay to parents and governesses, he declared that “Any Design, that is calculated to mend the Heart and inforce a Contrary Conduct, must surely claim the Attention and Encouragement of the Public.”  The Valentine’s Gift was supposed to change the way people celebrated the holiday by disassociating from traditional practices of gifting of ribbons, love knots, gloves, and stockings and restoring to its original Christian purity.  Newbery got this idea from a group of authorities who claimed that St. Valentine had urged his followers to choose their partners by lot and devote themselves the next year to advising, not romancing them.  Specialists today are quick to point out there is no proof of this practice was associated with the saint.

The author of The Valentine Gift laid out the new, more sober way of enjoying the day, which would last for an entire year and be highly beneficial. On the morning  of Valentine’s Day, partners would be chosen by this method:  the first boy, girl, man, or woman a person saw would be the year’s companion for whom he or she would be responsible.  The couple would keep their running moral accounts in order with copies of Newbery’s Important Pocket-book, which contained a ledge to track expenses and behavior.  One of the stories in the volume, “A Remarkable Cure effected by the Valentine’s Ledger (i.e., the Pocket-book) showed how the inveterate liar Sally Brown, changed her ways after being turned out of her parents’ house, thanks to the gift of the book by the kind Mrs. Jewson.  A more interesting one revolved around a princess who was not especially pleased with her lower-class valentine, the palace mason.  When he uncovered a plot to assassinate her by wicked ministers, she discovered his true worth and that of having valentines for a year.Hearts, flowers, and birds are not included in any of the book’s illustrations. The Valentine’s Day Gift and its companion volumes were less popular than The Renowned History of Giles Gingerbread,  probably because it was a shorter and a more cheerful story.  But The Valentine’s Gift does have one claim to fame and that is the story of Old Zigzag, a little appreciated predecessor of Dr. Dolittle. Mrs. Trimmer remembered Zigzag fondly as “the renowned translator of the language of Birds and Beasts, who in former days so successfully moved the hearts of Infancy for the distress of the animal world.”   With the help of a magic horn, Zigzag interviewed birds, insects, and mammals about their treatment at the hands of men.  So moved by what he heard, he may have destroyed the horn so that he would not have to listen to such terrible tales again.  But he might have left it to Mr. Newbery so their stories could be transcribed for little readers.

Newbery’s book may not have discouraged the romantic observance of Valentine’ Day, but it was, on the other hand, an early attempt to monetize a holiday by selling products, albeit ones to improve rather than gratify.