Encyclopaedia Britannica Collection of Literature for Children

The Encyclopaedia Britannica Collection of Literature for Children was formed by a Chicago businessman and private collector, Henry C. Friedman (1872-1945), who began collecting children's books just after World War I; by the time of his death in 1945, he had collected over 5,000 volumes that were purchased from his estate by Encyclopaedia Britannica and presented to the University of Chicago.

In shaping his collection, Friedman struggled with definitions of "the juvenile age" and "a juvenile book," for he believed that the three greatest children's books were not originally written for children -- Pilgrim's Progress, Gulliver's Travels, and Robinson Crusoe. Like many collectors, Friedman measured his holdings against a standard bibliography -- in his case, Jacob Blanck's 1938 Peter Parley to Penrod: A Bibliographical Description of the Best-Loved American Juvenile Books. In a 1943 letter to Blanck, Friedman described his collection as primarily American, with about 900 titles from the pre-1865 period, and particular strength in the period from 1865 to 1900. He was justifiably proud of several hundred titles relating to Abraham Lincoln, which he believed to be the finest in existence. Friedman reported that he held the majority of Parley to Penrod titles, but that he would never be able to afford the others: "I bear a grudge against you for this."

Perhaps as a result of his inability to purchase expensive older titles, Friedman's collection demonstrates remarkable independence from established lists and prizewinners. Nearly half the collection consists of outstanding contemporary works; and although he acquired many historical texts including his beloved Bunyan, Swift, and Defoe, these were more likely to be in modern illustrated versions than early printings. Among the nineteenth-and early twentieth-century authors represented in depth are Jacob Abbott, Horatio Alger, Hans Christian Andersen, Samuel Griswold Goodrich, Eugene Field, and Howard Pyle. But Friedman also had an excellent eye for the emerging American and European illustrators of his day who were transforming children's books, such as Jean de Brunhoff, William Pene du Bois, Dorothy Lathrop, Roger Duvoisin, Wanda Gag, and Maud and Miska Petersham.

Since the acquisition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica Collection in 1945, the collection has nearly doubled in size, with acquisitions concentrating on the pre-1917 period. Some additions have been made through purchase, for example a notable group of over 500 Russian children's books published in the 1930s. Gifts from the libraries of David Borowitz and Ernst Puttkamer have helped build the collection, especially of boys' books by George Alfred Henty and other series writers, while Neil Harris has strengthened the holdings of children's picture books from the interwar years.

This description is adapted from the Introduction to the catalogue of an exhibition in Special Collections, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: The Transportation Revolution in Children's Picture Books (University of Chicago Library, 1995). Copies of the catalogue are available for sale from the Special Collections Research Center.

For further information on the Encyclopaedia Britannica Collection of Literature for Children, please contact:

Special Collections Research Center
University of Chicago Library
1100 E. 57th Street
Chicago, Illinois 60637
SpecialCollections@lib.uchicago.edu.