Exploring the Seeds of US Nonfiction for Children: The Early Nineteenth-Century Natural History of Publisher Samuel L. Wood

Nonfiction animal books are a perennial favorite among young people and those who make books available to them. Exploring historic nonfiction animal books allows us to identify and analyze modes of representation, discursive patterns, and ideologies that continue to characterize the genre in the twenty-first century. This article, part of a wider study of the nonfiction books published by the nineteenth-century US-based children’s publisher Samuel Wood, analyzes and contextualizes four natural history animal books from Wood, illustrated by renowned engraver Alexander Anderson. Examining them as independent texts within the emerging field of British and US children’s literature, we focus on structure, language use, illustrations and multimodal semiosis, and embedded ideology. Ultimately, in Wood’s work, we bear witness to notable early forays into US children’s nonfiction literature.