Item #6343 Sammy Tubbs, The Boy Doctor, and Sponsie, the Troublesome Monkey [Complete Set, vol. 1-5]. MD EB Foote.
Sammy Tubbs, The Boy Doctor, and Sponsie, the Troublesome Monkey [Complete Set, vol. 1-5]
Sammy Tubbs, The Boy Doctor, and Sponsie, the Troublesome Monkey [Complete Set, vol. 1-5]

Sammy Tubbs, The Boy Doctor, and Sponsie, the Troublesome Monkey [Complete Set, vol. 1-5]

New York: Murray Hill Publishing Co., 1887. Science in Story Series. 5 x 6 in. Illustrated. Brown cloth case binding with boards decorated in black. Fair. All volumes have rubbing, bumping, loss, and wear to boards, vol. I and 2 both have hinges cracked, text block coming loose from case binding, stains throughout pages and paper embrittled. Item #6343

A serialized children’s novel in five parts intended to introduce concepts of science, medicine, and physiology to young readers. The series tells the story of Sammy Tubbs, a young African American boy working as a doctors’ apprentice with a comic sidekick in the form of a monkey named Sponsie. The series espouses many of Foote’s medical and social theories, some progressive for the time and others regressive, such as eugenics. The final volume is indicative of Foote’s progressive thought, discussing the human reproductive system candidly with diagrams and detailed descriptions not often seen in teaching tools for young audiences at the time.

A strange document of Victorian juvenile literature and popular science.

Price: $450.00