Domestic Pleasures or the Happy Fire-side by Frances Bowyer Vaux is about the small yet cozy Bernard family as they think of ways to help those of lesser fortune. Excerpt: «When I was a child, if a new book were given to me, I recollect, my first question invariably was:—"Is this true." If the answer were in the affirmative, the volume immediately assumed, in my eyes, a new value, and was pursued with far greater interest than a story merely fictitious. Now, as I am very desirous that you should take up this little volume with a prepossession in its favor, I must inform you, that the characters of the children here portrayed are all real characters."
