Jacob Abbott, Rollo at Work, or, The Way for a Boy To Learn To Be Industrious. Boston: T. H. Carter, 1838.
1st edition.
The third in what would come to be known as 'The Rollo Series' and published with a companion work, Rollo at Play, this title established the paradigm for the first American fictional series for children, which eventually grew to number fourteen volumes. His 'Jonas Series,' 'Lucy Books' and 'Franconia Stories' soon followed, as did numerous other voluminous series directed at young and adolescent readers, both boys and girls, and Abbott (Class of 1820) quickly earned his reputation as being among the more prolific and popular writers of children's literature in America. Key to Abbott's approach was engaging young readers through entertaining, plausible stories written from the child's point of view that would also encourage readers' 'thinking powers,' improve their reading skills, and, as he writes in his Notice to Parents in this volume, '[cultivate] the amiable and gentle qualities of the heart.'
Gift: Abbott family.