When Harry burst in to tell His Aunt Hannah how well his Hen had settled into the new nest He made for her, Here is a transcript of what he said:

“O aunt anna, what do you think?  My en as had another egg, and so I’ve set er, and made er such a find nest you don’t know!  It’s all lined with ay and air, and I’ve put it in an at box in the en ouse.”

No kind Victorian aunt would have let Her nephew be thought “a pris’ner of the gutters,” so she tells Him very gently How improperly He speaks:

“How often Have I told you that you must try to pronounce your H’s and in one minute you Have left out six.  Hen, Has, Had, Hay, Hair and Hat.”  (she left out “House!”)

Harry Hangs his Head and wishes for a book full of H’s and his Helpful aunt sits down that evening to begin writing one that will Help Him Haspirate his aitches.

Aunt Hannah composed a long chapter about the Hawk and the Hare family in the High Hills known as Hawthorn Hollow, another on Holy H’s, that is names of places and people in the Bible that begin with H, and a third on Humprey Hobb’s Huge Hog.  After finishing the last one, Harry reports to His aunt that he is making great progress.  Oh dear, this is the transcript of what Harry said:

But Aunt Hannah knows that Rome was not built in a day and that she must persevere if Harry is to establish a new good Habit.  By the time he works his way through “Arthur Harper, or as He was often called, Handsome Harper, gamekeeper to Sir Herbert Hazlehough” and the sad History of His Highless the king of Heligoland and his Hairy Ape who froze to death on Christmas Night, and “The Three Valiant Brothers, ” wHo, wHose, and wHom,” he has conquered his bad Habit.

With continued daily application to the book Aunt Hannah wrote for him, by the time Harry turns eleven, he is ready for Hazleton Grammar School and learn “Hic, Haec, Hoc without any difficulty.

Harry was published by Griffith and Farran, successors to Newbery and Harris in St. Paul’s churchyard in 1857 and Cotsen just acquired a copy.  The venerable reference source of Halkett & Laing attributed it to Ellen Ann (Shove) Eccles, and the copies at the Osborne Collection and Cambridge University Library are also cataloged as her work.   A revised edition was issued in 1881, when there were 9,000 copies in circulation.

It is certainly among the most amusing little books ever written and designed to improve pronunciation!  Think of all the grief poor Eliza Doolittle might have been spared if someone had given her a copy…