ABSTRACT
In 1909, the Bellows-Reeve company of Chicago, a publisher specializing in children’s educational material, released Journeys through Bookland, a ten-volume series designed to be ‘a new and original plan for reading, applied to the world’s best literature for children’. 1 Journeys through Bookland is one of many home libraries that was created and sold by subscription during the early twentieth century, sets of books which were intended to provide an individual with ‘a portable university’. 2 Home libraries for children aimed to span a child’s development from pre-schooler to adult and promised parents an investment in a lifetime of good reading. Edited by Charles H. Sylvester, a former Professor of Literature and Pedagogy at the University of Wisconsin – Steven’s Point, Journeys through Bookland is an ambitious course of reading bringing together works of fiction, history, mythology, poetry, travelogues, nature writing, and biography. Each volume includes illustrations, and Sylvester’s editorial presence is highly visible through various paratextual apparatuses intended for instruction such as introductory notes, footnotes, and reading questions. In this series, literature comes across as a serious study and one that demands guidance. In no way is the child’s reading (or the parents’) left to chance.
