12mo. [4], 247pp, [1]. With an engraved frontispiece, printed in oils by J. Baxter. Original publisher's embossed maroon cloth, lettered in gilt to spine, A.E.G. A trifle rubbed. Scattered spotting, later bookplate of W. Kinning Crone to REP.

The second edition, printed in the year after the first, of a series of conduct of life tales by influential children's writer Mary Martha Sherwood (1775-1851). This extended edition adds one further story to the ten of the original ('The Christmas Carol'), most of which had previously been published in The Youth's Magazine. The first, 'The Mail Coach', reveals Sherwood's contempt for theoretical reformers 'these favourers of general emancipation from old authorities [who] universally leave the depravity of human nature out of their calculation.' It is this story which is illustrated by Baxter's frontispiece. In the first edition this carried his Kings Square address (which he vacated in 1835), probably making the book the first English children's production to be illustrated by colour-printing.