*The Mermaid “At Home!”* (1809) – The Public Domain Review

The best children’s books are ones that can entertain readers of any age. The mermaid “Home!” (1809) achieves this with a simple, playful trope: a mermaid proclaims “a submarine party,” and we, as readers, are the invited guests. In the color plates that follow, we are treated to “grand entertainment” of an aquatic nature, filled with visual and verbal jokes at the expense of the mermaid’s neighbors. We meet the “pike” and the “sword”.[fish]”into the fray, a pipefish blowing smoke at an angry fishwife, and a blissful anglerfish overseeing the union of a wealthy cod and his mate. The shark is a gambler, the dolphin a fashionable gentleman. The entertainment culminates in the spectacle of “His Majesty,” the whale, squirting.