Most Popular Books by Mary Howitt

An illustrated version of the well-known poem about a wily spider who preys on the vanity and innocence of a little fly.

Mary Howitt''s classic 19th Century poem, "The Spider and the Fly," warns its young readers against the danger of flattery and evil counsel. In her famous tale, the flitting Fly is overwhelmed by the cunning Spider, due in part to the Spider''s deception, but also because of the Fly''s own sins of vanity and naivety. The poem is told in an engaging rhyme and rhythm and is colorfully illustrated by Ukrainian artist Yelyzaveta Anysymova. This edition of Howitt''s tale of moral hazard is a great addition to any child''s bookshelf. Mary Howitt (1799-1888) was an English author of over 180 books, many written for children. Among her literary accomplishments were her translations of many tales by Hans Christian Andersen and her work as an editor on the Fisher''s Drawing Room Scrap Book. She was recognized and rewarded for her life''s work with a silver medal from the Literary Academy of Stockholm and a Civil List Pension from the United Kingdom. Yelyzaveta Anysymova is a self-taught children''s book artist from Ukraine. She draws inspiration from the people and beauty of her hometown of Zaporizhzhia.

The mighty hemisphere of the West lay for countless ages shrouded from the knowledge of the rest of the world, as by the darkness of night, waiting for the appointed time of its revelation. That appointed time was the close of the fifteenth century, for although upwards of four hundred years earlier, after the reign of Alfred of England, and Charlemagne in France, America was discovered by some of those adventurous Scandinavian Vikings—the true ancestors of the so-called Anglo-Saxons, who, in their stout-built little ships, traversed all seas—still the knowledge of this discovery produced so little effect on the rest of the world, that afterwards, when America was rediscovered, the history of the Scandinavian colonisers was regarded as mythical. The antiquarian researches, however, of Rafn and others, leave no doubt of the fact. These bold adventurers, at home on the most perilous seas, having colonised Iceland, Greenland, and afterwards Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, came at length, in the year 1000, to the coast of America, where a colony was formed under the name of Vinland hin Goda, or Vineland the Good—so called from the abundance of wild grapes which grew there, and because the mildness of the climate and the fertility of the soil delighted the discoverers, accustomed as they were to the savage sterility and severe cold of Greenland and Iceland, and even of their native north...FROM THE BOOKS.