Lucy Peacock's Reward

Title page of Lucy Peacock's La Petite Émigrée (1836)

Book Arts & Special Collections is in the midst of cataloging its French language humor books, which form part of  the Schmulowitz Collection of Wit & Humor. Books that were formerly hidden are now discoverable in the library's online catalog, alerting readers to humorous 6th floor treasures en français. Sometimes, in addition to the book proper, a book holds an unexpected gift. For instance, this copy of Lucy Peacock's La Petite Émigrée (shown above) opens with a lovely engraved document on the front paste-down: a nineteenth century reward of merit.

Reward of merit pasted into Lucy Peacock's La Petite Émigrée (1836)

Our book shows that a student, Mlle. Hortense--and here the inscription is a bit unclear and seems to read "Leboucher"-- was awarded a prize by her teacher on 26 April [1837?]. Mlle. Hortense must have cherished this book, a token of esteem for her academic achievement. A little book of moral tales, amusing stories and instructive lessons, La Petite Émigrée was first printed in England in 1799. The French edition was published in Paris in 1836.

Much of what we know about the author, Lucy Peacock, may be found in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. She seems to have been a popular children's author, active from about 1785-1816. Her children's stories appeared in the Juvenile Magazine in the 1780s; her books were later published with such titles as The Adventures of the Six Princesses in the Travels to the Temple of Virtue (1785), The Visit for a Week (1794), and Patty Primrose (1813). With R. Peacock (perhaps her husband), Lucy Peacock also ran a book shop at 259 Oxford Street, London. She translated works from French, and, in turn, several of her books, like the one described here, were translated for French children.

Mlle. Hortense's prize is similar to the reward of merit that American children received in the nineteenth century. Beginning in the early part of that century, teachers awarded certificates to students for good conduct, attendance, excellence in handwriting, and progress in learning. The reward of merit became a popular aspect of American education, evolving from a simple one-color printed slip to a major sideline for the chromolithography industry by the end of the nineteenth century. It makes sense that prizes such as the reward of  merit would jump the pond; this nineteenth century innovation had a positive effect on the academic achievements of children. One wonders what might have happened to Mlle. Hortense Leboucher, if indeed that was her name.

This post is part of Everyday Matters, an occasional series of blog posts featuring ephemera in the collections of the Book Arts & Special Collections Center and the San Francisco History Center. In his Encyclopedia of Ephemera, an exhaustive work on the subject, scholar Maurice Rickards proposed a definition that has gained wide support, although it isn't perfect: ephemera is "minor transient documents of everyday life."

REFERENCES:



A Dictionary of British and American Women Writers, 1660-1800 edited by Janet Todd (1985), 242

Dictionary of National Biography [1963-1965]: volume 15, 588

Encyclopedia of Ephemera by Maurice Rickards (2001), 271-273

Exeter Working Papers in Book History (retrieved 19 May 2012)

The London Book Trades, 1755-1800 by Ian Maxted (1977), 173

Rewards of Merit by Patricia Fenn and Alfred P. Malpa (1994)



Detail of reward of merit from Lucy Peacock's La Petite Émigrée (1836)

Images: La Petite Émigrée by Lucy Peacock (Paris, 1836)
Schmulowitz Collection of Wit &  Humor, San Francisco Public Library