“Coverless and faded, hard usage is written in unmistakable characters upon this play-thing of a whole family.  Upon the flyleaf are autographs of ‘Ebenezer Ware and Sarah Ware, Their Book,’ and upon another page these two names with the addition of the signatures of ‘Ichabod Ware and Cyrus Ware 1787.’  One parent may have used it when it was fresh from the press of Draper & Edwards in Boston; then, through enforced economy, handed it down to the next generation, who doubtless scorned the dedication so eminently proper in seventeen hundred and fifty, so thoroughly out of place thirty-seven years later.”

Reference Data:

Forgotten Books of the American Nursery, by Rosalie Vrylina Halsey, 1911, page 44