The period in American literary history from 1880 to the turn of the twentieth century was a landmark era for children's literature. Nowhere was this more visible than in the realm of fiction for children. St. Nicholas and other influential children's periodicals presented wondrous new worlds and showcased many talented authors to eager juvenile readers. Among the authors whose works appeared in the pages of St. Nicholas, few could match the appeal of the slightly built stockbroker from New York, Charles Edward Carryl. Though forgotten by the young of today,Carryl, at the end of the last century, was hailed as the American Lewis Carroll, his nonsense classic Davy And The Goblin (1885), the Alice In Wonderland of America. The title was apt in that Carryl frankly acknowledged influence from the British Carroll, yet the work, though similar to the English one in its nonsensical nature, proved an original children's...