The Rocket Book

"The upward progress of a rocket,
lit in the basement by the janitor's son,
causes some strange situations as it
passes through 20 floors of apartments!"

American artist and author, Peter Newell (1862-1924), established his credentials providing humorous illustrations for famous magazines and newspapers in the last two decades of the 19th century.

Newell also illustrated popular books by other authors (Twain and Carroll, for instance) and wrote and illustrated a series of his own children's books. These latter works proved fairly influential and tended to revolve around a single theme (or perhaps, gimmick). The 'Topsys & Turvys' series could be viewed right way up or upside down; 'The Hole Book' had an actual physical hole through all its pages and 'The Rocket Book', above, features the recurring sight of a rocket flying through each illustrated scene.

• 'The Rocket Book' (1912) by Peter Sheaf Hersey Newell is available from the Library of Congress via the Center for the Book's read.gov portal.
• 'The Rocket Book' is also available as a synchronised audiobook/slideshow on Youtube through Librivox and the CCProse Youtube channel.
• Read.gov.
• Peter Newell bio: [W] & NonsenseLit.
• Newell fairytale illustrations at SurLaLune.
• Peter Newell books: Amazon :: Internet Archive :: Project Gutenburg.
• VIA the always interesting Ptak's History of Ideas blog.