1848 & 1849. YOUNG PEOPLE'S MIRROR. Rare Complete Run of Benson John Lossing's Periodical for the Young.

An inexplicably rare complete two-volume run early antebellum American juvenile and family periodical edited, illustrated, and wood-engraved by Benson John Lossing, one of 19th-century America's most famous wood engravers and popular historians. These seem to be to the only issues of the short-lived periodical published. We locate not a single instance in the auction history or in the trade at the time of cataloging. 

Beyond its extreme rarity in surviving complete runs, it serves as an important cultural record of mid-19th-century popular education, capturing pivotal contemporary interests ranging from early American history, popular science, and early hot-air ballooning ("aerial navigation") to pre-Moby-Dick American whaling accounts and contemporary natural history.

The Young People's Mirror. An American Family Visitor. Volume 1. No 1 through No. 12, January through December, 1848. New York. 1848. 72 + 72pp.

Contents include: Chinese Water Craft [Illustrated Series]; The Solar System; Patrick Henry before the Virginia Assembly [Excellent Woodcut]; A Good Slap at Bare Arms [on Female Modesty]; Crystals of Snow [Illustrated]; Telescopic Appearance of the Moon [Illustrated]; Catching Wild Horses on a Prairie [Early Cowboy Woodcut]; George Washington and the Camp at Valley Forge [Fine Woodcuts]; Universal Brotherhood; Volcanoes [Illustrated]; Whale Fishery [Illustrated - Herman Melville - Moby Dick Interest]; George Washington Crossing the Delaware [Illustrated]; Priority of the Chinese in the Discovery of Numerous Branches of Art and of Manufacture; John Hart of the American Revolution; Choosing a Wife; The Copernican System [Illustrated]; Letters to My Sons by John Quincy Adams [Series]; The Capture of Ticonderoga [Ethan Allen Woodcut]; Biography of John Quincy Adams [Woodcut]; A Leaf from Life's Day Book; or, The Sailor's Daughter; Aurora Borealis [Woodcut of Reindeer, Esquimaux, etc.]; The Inauguration of George Washington [with Excellent Woodcut]; The Female Temper; The Battle of Bunker Hill [Woodcut]; A Nation without a Sabbath; The Declaration of Independence [Woodcut]; Joshua Johnson - Father of Mrs. John Quincy Adams; Phonography; The Treason of Benedict Arnold; The Monthly Zodiac Signs [Series]; The First Congress by John Adams; The Origin of the Dream; Chain Bridge over the Potomac [Full Page Woodcut]; The Boston Tea Party [Woodcut]; etc. 

[With]

The Young People's Mirror. An American Family Visitor. Volume 2. No 1 through No. 12, January through December, 1849. New York. 1849. 142pp.

Contents include: Signing the Treaty at Paris [with Woodcut]; The Hive Bee [with Woodcuts]; Capture of the Serapis [with Woodcut]; A Quaker Jumping a Ditch; Children by Harriet Beecher Stowe; The Prevailing Contagion [Yellow Fever, Cholera, and Small-Pox]; Physiognomy [Illustrated]; The Orang Outang [Orangutan - Superb Woodcut]; The Viper [Woodcuts]; Chapter on Females; Schrankia Sensitiva or Sensitive Plant by E. G. Wheeler; On the Early [Age] Marriages of American Women; The Chippewa Indians; The Triumph of Despotism; The Overflowing Waters - A Tradition of the Choctaw; Sketch of the Life of General Baron Knyphausen - Commander of the German Troops in the War of the Revolution; Aerial Navigation [Over a Dozen Woodcuts of Hot Air Balloons]; Peace; Or the Soldier's Return by Felix Quintin; Tea [Beautiful Chinese Woodcuts on Tea Production]; Fossil Foot-Prints; etc. 

Good - in original half calf, small folio format. Generally quite handled, perhaps lacking a general title to the first volume, a few leaves rather tatty or detached at the front. p.41 of Vol. 1. with loss of text from sheet fold printer's error. Occasional tears, not impacting textual legibility.