Historias para niños mexicanos
Apr 27th, 2009 by houghtonmodern
At the turn of the twentieth century, Spanish publishers the Maucci brothers commissioned Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913) to illustrate a new series of children’s stories on the history of Mexico, the Biblioteca del niño mexicano. Each story was published with a colorful, and often rather gruesome, wrapper illustration depicting the contents within, and several black-and-white illustrations within the text. One of the first attempts to bring history to Mexican children, the stories were sixteen pages each, and were bound together, at about the same time, in thematic groups of about twelve.
Houghton Library, with funding from Widener Library’s program on Latin America, Spain and Portugal, has recently acquired a set of 85 of these stories, bound in seven volumes. Three of Posada’s covers can be seen here:
More of Posada’s covers for the series can be seen here, from a collection at the University of Hawaii Library.
*2008-2071. Purchased with the Andrew Preston Peabody Fund. Images may not be reproduced without permission. To request an image of this item, or any items displayed on this blog, please contact the Houghton Library Public Services department, houghref at fas.harvard.edu.
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[...] Houghton Library has recently acquired turn of the twentieth century children’s stories on the history of Mexico. Details, including images, at the Houghton Modern Books and Manuscripts blog. [...]