The New England Primer
Two pages from a New England Primer reprinted in Boston by Ira Webster in 1844.
The New England Primer was the most widely circulated schoolbook in
America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Known as the
"Little Bible" of New England, it was compiled by Benjamin Harris, an
English bookseller and writer of anti-Catholic verses who from 1686 to 1695
lived in Boston, Massachusetts. It was the primary schoolbook of the American
Dissenters. Early in the text of the primer comes an illustrated alphabet with
rhymes, followed by sentences and prayers to be learned by heart and ending with
a catechism. The OCCL reports that up to 1830 alone more than 360 editions
were printed, and twenty years later tens of thousands of copies were still in
circulation.