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Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
The Wisdom of Crop the Conjurer
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

The Wisdom of Crop the Conjurer

author
printer (Boston, 1749 - 1831)
Date1794
MediumPrinted ink on paper
Dimensions10.2 x 6.4 x 0.8 cm (4 x 2 1/2 x 5/16 in.)
ClassificationsBooks
Credit LineIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Accession number10.b.1.33
eMuseum ID723852
EmbARK ObjectID18159
TMS Source ID6211
Last Updated8/14/24
Descriptionviii, 9-59, [5] p. : ill. ; 11 cm. (16mo)
Status
Not on view
Web CommentaryCrop the Conjurer was produced by the most important publisher of children's books in 18th-century America, Isaiah Thomas of Worcester, Massachusetts. His primary purpose was moral instruction but he also saw value in making the lessons entertaining. Isabella Stewart Gardner was a voracious reader, and books were the first objects that she collected. Of the 2700 books she acquired for her museum, about 120 can be considered children's books.
BibliographyNotesSusan Sinclair and Philip B. Eppard. Catalogue of Children’s Books from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Collection and the Personal Libraries of John Lowell and Isabella Stewart Gardner (Boston, 1988), po. 14-15, no. 7b.
MarksNotesInsscribed in ink (on label, affixed to the cover, upper left): Brinley / 7186 / 8
ProvenanceNotes
Collection of Gerald Ephraim Hart (1849-1936), Montreal,  by 1890.
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from auctioneers Charles F. Libbie and Co., Boston, for $14 on 16 April 1890, lot 588. (with six other chapbooks, 10.b.1.27-33)