Baxter’s Second Innings
Baxter’s Second Innings – Baxter’s Second Innings, by Professor Henry Drummond was first published in 1891 with a print run of 20,000 copies, the title proved popular and was republished in 1899, albeit with a different cover and layout, and finally re-published for a third time in the 1950’s.
The 1891-92 Annual Report recorded: Professor Drummond offered 53 Prizes for letters written to “Baxter” on the subject “What are a Boy’s chief temptations, and what is the best way to meet them?” The result was extremely gratifying to the generous donor, no fewer than 359 letters having been received from England, Scotland, Ireland, The United States, and Canada, “genuine Boys’ letters, with an air of simple reality about them that greatly touched those who read them.“
Christmas books – The late Victorian period was a time of rapidly increasing literacy, with The Boys’ Brigade playing its part in this progress with the publication in 1889 of a Christmas Gift book for Boys. The primary purpose of this book was to encourage Boys to read, and the first publication featured 16 pages of text interspersed with illustrations. This set a pattern for future books which continued until 1899. These books proved very successful, and reached a good proportion of Boys in the Brigade. Few of these books now exist, and it is fortunate that enough copies remain to be reproduced and read on the BB virtual museum as a flip book below.
