Wheels: Bicycles, Sleighs and Chariots in Nineteenth-century Children’s Books

Les Enfans Parisiens. Paris: Chez Aubert & Cie. [ca. 1850]. (Cotsen 22849)

An elegant, low-slung coach drawn by a matched pair of stylish young gentlemen for an afternoon ride through the park?  This enormous plate (24 x 29 cm.) comes from Les enfans parisiens: Jeux, exercice et amusements (Paris: Aubert & cie, ca. 1850].

Lustige gesellschaft. München: Braun & Schneider, 1867. (Cotsen 34396)

If you have to have fresh air no matter what the weather, this is the sleigh for you.  Graf Franz von Pocci designed this sleek, minimal vehicle for an illustration to a poem in his Lustige gesellschaft: Bilderbuch von Fr. Pocci (Munich: Braun & Schneider, 1867).

Het nieuwe apenspel. Amsterdam: G. Theod. Bom, [1862]. (Cotsen 52644)

Something with more power?  These simian charioteers were dreamed up by Jacobus Wilhelmus Adrianus Hilverdink for Jan Schnkman’s Het nieuwe apenspel (Amsterdam: G. Theodore Bom, 1862).

Little Hearts. London, Manchester and New York: George Routledge and Sons, Limited, 1897. (Cotsen 15288)

There’s always the reliable old bicycle.  It’s not fast or flashy, but it can take you where you want to go.  Florence Upton drew this image of a little girl polishing up her big brother’s bike for her mother’s Little Hearts (London, Manchester, New York: George Routledge and Sons, Limited, 1897), several years before she scored an enormous hit with the Golliwog series.

All these pictures of vehicles were chosen to illustrate the theme of transportation in the nineteenth-century volumes of the Cotsen catalogue.