Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books facts for kids
The Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books is a collection of children's books with over 80,000 items.
Composition of the collection
The collection has grown not only in quantity, but also in the period which is spans. When Osborne donated his collection, the oldest item was from 1566, about 400 years old. Now the oldest item in the collection is a cuneiform tablet that is c. 4000 years old.
The original Osborne Collection (with items up to the cut-off date of 1910) still forms the largest portion of the whole collection. It ranges from literary classics to popular culture, including children's novelties like moveables and miniatures. It also includes an extensive collection of works by G. A. Henty, with nearly 1,800 items in the collection written by him. It also contains the Pettingell Collection of periodicals and penny dreadfuls, and the childhood libraries of such notables as Florence Nightingale and Queen Mary.
The collection now includes another three other sub-collections:
- The Lillian H. Smith Collection in 1962. Smith was the first professionally trained Children's librarian in the then British Empire and had set up the library services for children which had so impressed Osborne on his 1934 visit. This collection comprises creative books of literary and artistic merit, published in English since 1911, as such items could not be included in the main collection because of its cut-off date. This collection was set up on the 50th anniversary of the first Children's library that Smith had established in Toronto in 1912.
- The Canadiana collection contains children's book related to Canada, or whose publisher or illustrators were related to Canada. Highlights of this collection in include: the manuscript of An illustrated Comic Alphabet (1859), the first Canadian picture book; small press publications; and an archive of current Canadian authors.
- The Jean Thomson Collection of Original Art in 1977. This collection named after Jean Homson, the former children's librarian and head of the Toronto Public Library. This include over one thousand pieces of original art. The art is from both Canadian illustrators such as Elizabeth Cleaver, Laszlo Gal, Marie-Louise Gay, and Margaret Bloy Graham. Barbara Reid, Maurice Sendak; and non-Canadian illustrators including: Edward Ardizzone, Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, and Arthur Rackham.
The collection is supported by charitable donations. The Friends of the Osborne and Lillian H. Smith Collections was established in 1966 and welcomes members from all over the world. The British Branch of the Friends is the Children's Books History Society.
