Dean & Son facts for kids

Dean & Son

Page of a Dean & Son alphabet toy book, published c. 1847
Founded	c. 1800
Founders	Thomas Dean
Country of origin	England
Headquarters location	London
Key people	Thomas Dean, founder; George Dean, partner (1847)
Fiction genres	Novelty children's books

A close-up of the hand-coloured picture

Dean & Son was a famous publishing company in London during the 1800s. They were super well-known for creating and selling lots of cool children's books that had moving parts, like pop-up books!

Thomas Dean started the company around 1800. He brought new ways of printing, like lithography, which helped make the books special. By 1847, when his son George joined, Dean & Son was the top publisher for exciting new children's books in London.

The company moved around London a bit. They started on Threadneedle Street, then moved to Ludgate Hill, and later to Fleet Street. Much later, in the mid-1900s, they even published books by the famous author Enid Blyton and classic children's stories in their "Dean's Classics" series.

Amazing Moving Books

Dean & Son was one of the first companies to make pop-up books for kids. They could print huge numbers of these books. In the 1860s, they came up with "living picture" books. These books had pictures that moved when you pulled a tab!

They also created "pantomime books." In these, the scenes in the pictures changed because different pages were different sizes. The books often had beautiful pictures made using a special engraving method. These pictures were then carefully coloured by hand. By the late 1850s, they had published over 200 different books. Each book was the same size and cost about sixpence.

Fun Stories for Kids

The books covered many different topics. You could find classic fairy tales, stories about talking animals, or famous adventures like Robinson Crusoe. Most of their books were made just for fun and entertainment. They weren't usually meant to teach lessons. However, some books, like Dean's Moveable Dogs Party, did show how people lived in Victorian times. They also taught about good manners.

How They Made Moving Books

These special books were quite expensive to make. They were printed using a method called letterpress. Then, artists hand-coloured them using a stencil method called "pochoir." This meant they probably made only a limited number of each book.

Even so, Dean & Son was the first company to bring moving picture books to lots of people. They had up to 50 different moving books available in the late 1800s. This made them the leading publisher of these amazing books.

Kids loved playing with these books and their clever moving parts. Dean's workshops designed many different kinds of moving pictures.

• "Peep show" style: Parts of the pictures were cut out and stacked. When you turned a page, a ribbon pulled, and a 3D scene popped up!
• "Living pictures": You pulled a tab, and different parts of the scene on the page would move or "animate."
• "Pantomime books": These books had pages of different sizes. When you turned a page, the scene would change. These were part of their "Home Pantomime Toy Book" series. They had gorgeous, colourful pictures made with chromolithographs. Books like their version of "Beauty and the Beast" became very popular.

Book Prices and Series

The cost of the books varied a lot. Simple toy books might sell for sixpence. But big, colourful moving books could cost 5 shillings! Most of their books sold for 1 shilling and sixpence.

Many of their books were part of special series, like:

• The "Royal Picture Toy Books" (costing 1 shilling, sixpence)
• Aunt Fanny's "Pictures to Amuse with Tales to Please" series (costing 5 shillings)
• The "Miss Mary Merryheart" series
• The "Little Plays for Little People" series (written by Julia Corner and drawn by Alfred Henry Forrester)
• Their popular "New Scenic Series" (started in the mid-1850s)

Moveable Pictures Gallery

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  This picture shows Cinderella trying on the shoe

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  When refolded, the picture shows Cinderella with the Prince