Lydia Louisa Anna Very
American writer, poet, educator and illustrator
Lydia Louisa Anna Very (November 2, 1823 – September 10, 1901) was an American writer, educator, and illustrator known for authoring the earliest shape books in America.
Biography
She was born in Salem, Massachusetts, the daughter of two first cousins, Lydia Very and Jones Very, a captain during the War of 1812. Her brother Jones became a Transcendentalist poet and clergyman.
She became a teacher at the age of 18 and spent most of her 34-year teaching career in the local public schools. As an artist, she worked in oil and clay.
In 1863 she wrote and designed Red Riding Hood, a verse version of the folk tale "Little Red Riding Hood" that was die-cut into the outline shape of the little girl with the wolf crouching by her feet. Published by L. Prang & Co., it was the first book in the United States to be shaped like a person or an animal. Prang followed up with more shaped books (also known as 'Doll books') written by Very, including Goody Two Shoes and a verse version of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Very claimed the shaped-book design was hers and tried but failed to get a patent; her claim was disputed by Prang, which countered that it had originated the shaped books. In any case, the shaped books were quickly imitated by other publishers, and Very later wrote that she was paid very little for these books, which were quite successful.
“Lydia Louisa Anna Very” enters the record as american writer, poet, educator and illustrator. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Lydia, Louisa and Anna can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q42310325. VIAF identifies the subject as 11261076. The Library of Congress control number is n84216378. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1823, 1901, 1812 and 1863.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lydia Louisa Anna Very” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.