Duty
Duty – A Story for The Boys’ Brigade, by G.A. Henty published in 1890.
The Annual Report of 1890-91 recorded: As a Christmas Gift Book for the Boys, the Committee were fortunate in securing an interesting Boys’ story entitled “Duty,” written specially for the Brigade by Mr. G. A. Henty, whose popularity in the Boy world is so great that it will cause no surprise to state that nearly 15,000 copies of this booklet have been distributed throughout the Brigade. The Committee are deeply indebted to Mr. Henty for his willing and valuable help.
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.
