The New England Primer
The New England Primer
Boston, S. Kneeland & T. Green, 1843 (circa 1690)
3.75" x 4.75"
Kerlan Collection, Children's Literature Research Collections
University of Minnesota Libraries
This unremarkable-looking little volume is the oldest known copy of the most influential American children's book of the 18th and early 19th centuries. First published in Boston around 1690, The New England Primer represented to pious Puritan parents nothing less than the prospect of spiritual salvation for their sons and daughters. It offered instruction leading to the ability to read the Bible—the only book of real significance, they believed. And it prepared the young (should they survive past their first years in an age of dismally high child mortality) for a prayerful life. Later editions—by 1830 there were more than 430—were modified to make note of changing worldly concerns. The alphabet rhyme for "K" in a 1727 edition, for instance, read, "Our King the good/No man of blood," but by 1791, a new sentiment was clearly in order: "The British King/Lost States Thirteen."