Tales such as
"Jack the Giant Killer," "Tom Thumb," the "Children in the Wood," and
"Guy of Warwick," were orally current even among the plain people of
England, though frowned upon by many of the Puritan element. Therefore
it is at least presumable that these were all familiar to the colonists.
In fact, it is known that John Dunton, in sixteen hundred and
eighty-six, sold in his Boston warehouse "The History of Tom Thumb,"
which he facetiously offered to an ignorant customer "in folio with
Marginal notes." Besides these orally related tales of enchantment, the
children had a few simple pastimes, but at first the few toys were
necessarily of home manufacture. On the whole, amusements were not
encouraged, although "In the year sixteen hundred and ninety-five Mr.
Higginson," writes Mrs. Earle, "wrote from Massachusetts to his brother
in England, that if toys were imported in small quantity to America,
they would sell." And a venture of this character was certainly made by
seventeen hundred and twelve in Boston.
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