Dick and Jane

This is a reprint of the original Dick and Jane book published in 1930 as one of the Elson-Gray Readers. This book was published by William H. Elson (1856-1935) and William S. Gray (1885–1960). It was a revised version of the series of Elson Readers that were being published by 1909. Before the Elston Readers there were the McGuffy Readers starting in 1881. The McGuffy Readers showed a picture of a cat chasing a rat with the sentence “The Cat and the Rat Ran”. These readers were used universally in schools for 40 years. The Elston Readers starting in 1909 had more of a story line and avoided unpleasant but realistic pictures of cats eating rats. It had a short list of repeatable words. This was a series of readers with different stories for different grade levels. Dick and Jane were just two of the characters but they were the ones who seemed to catch on. However, other stories became famous such as “The Little Engine that Could”.