Osgood, Mrs. M. A. Little Canary's Daisy (The Little Canary Series). Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1873. [10931]
Green publisher's binding decorated in gilt, bright, clean, 6 3/4 x 4 1/2 inches, tight. Small name stamp with date 1887 on the ffep. Frontispiece by John Andrew-Son, extra engraved series title page, 195 clean pp., 2 additional plates. Very good. Hardcover.
John Andrew & Son was an engraving firm in Boston that produced book illustrations for Lee & Shepard and Edward S. Curtis. It was established by John Andrew and his son George in 1869.
Mary Ann Gunnison Osgood (1826-1902), a New England native. She evidently took up writing to help support her young family; her husband was a struggling music teacher. She began contributing essays, poems, and short stories to religious periodicals in 1854, and Lee & Shepard published her four-volume Little Canary series in 1872.
"The series relates the domestic doings of the Carrol children and their families. Music, important to the Osgoods, figures in most of the books. The families bear the musical surname Carrol and periodically give evidence of their tuneful tendencies. Canary's mother and aunt play the piano; her father, the flute, and her grandfather, the bass-viol. All three girls take lessons, and mention of family members singing occurs throughout the series, with Little Canary - nicknamed Bird - as the star performer, displaying unusual talent from infancy." - Deidre Johnson, at readseriesdotcom, used by permission.
