PARLEY'S MAGAZINE For Children & Youth, Boston, April 13, 1833  This issue still has the front outer wrapper, featuring 14 engravings. Several prints within, accompanying the stories, one of which is hand-tinted.
Sixteen pages with the front wrapper, 5 1/2 by 7 inches, good condition.

Background: The publication of this April 1833 issue of Parley’s Magazine represents a watershed moment in the evolution of American children's literature, marking a deliberate shift away from the stark, terrifying moralism of Puritan-era texts toward educational entertainment. Orchestrated by Samuel Griswold Goodrich under his beloved "Peter Parley" persona, the magazine was among the earliest successful attempts in the United States to capture the minds of youth through the systematic use of vivid, abundant visual media. By embedding fourteen intricate front-wrapper engravings and hand-tinted interior illustrations alongside accessible lessons in geography, science, and history, the periodical proved that children could be guided into literacy and citizenship through curiosity rather than fear. Furthermore, surviving copies that retain their original fragile paper wrappers are extraordinarily rare artifacts of early 19th-century print culture; they offer historians a pristine look at the exact material format that pioneered the modern, highly illustrated children's periodical market in America.