About our books
Yesterday's Classics republishes classic books for children in high-quality paperback editions. The vast majority of these books were first published in the golden age of children's literature from 1880 to 1920 and have been long out of print. Yesterday's Classics makes them available in modern easy-to-read type for today's readers. The illustrations from the original volumes have been included except in those few cases where the quality of the original images was too low to make their reproduction feasible. Color illustrations in the original volumes are rendered in black and white in these editions, except where otherwise noted. All our books have perfect binding, cream interior, and color covers. Most are 6 x 9. The few that are 5.5 x 8.5 or 8.5 x 11 have their dimensions listed in the description. Many of the covers are facsimiles of the original covers; some of the covers include a color illustration from the original volume. Hardback editions of these books could be made available if sufficient interest warrants it.
Careful Selection Criteria
Since 2005, Yesterday's Classics has been carefully selecting for republication the best of the children's books first published a century ago when a Christian worldview and high standards of literary excellence were the norm. Only books that meet our standards for selection.
Incorporate text of high literary quality
Use story to engage the reader
Cultivate the moral imagination
Awaken an interest in the out of doors
Furnish heroes worthy of emulation
Stimulate powers of observation
Print Editions
Yesterday's Classics offers over 260 titles in high-quality paperback editions, with text pleasingly formatted in modern easy-to-read type. Illustrations from the original volumes are included, rendered in black and white in these editions for the most part. Dozens of Yesterday's Classics titles have been adopted by top curriculum developers and providers including the Alveary, Ambleside Online, A Gentle Feast, Heart of Dakota, Wildwood Curriculum, Tapestry of Grace, The Charlotte Mason Educational Center (The CMEC), and Rainbow Resource Center. Many of the titles we offer have been out of print for decades and so have been hard to find. Now your children can enjoy these books that delighted generations of children a century ago.
Shop Print Books.webp)
.webp)
Ebooks in Kindle and EPUB Format
All of Yesterday's Classics ebooks are crafted with the same care and attention as our print editions. Each ebook includes a clickable table of contents, and clean text, carefully proofread, and attractively formatted. Illustrations from original books, many in color, are included. In 2011 our first ebook package, Treasury 1, won the Blue Ribbon Award for "Best Homeschool Resource" from TOS Homeschool Crew 2010-2011.
Our Mission
Yesterday's Classics was formed in 2005 to republish classic books for children in high-quality paperback, and later high-quality ebook, editions. These books were first published in the golden age of children's literature from 1880 to 1920, and many have been long out of print. In order to make the best children's books accessible to all, we originally began making many of these books available for free over the internet at the Baldwin Online Children's Literature Project (or Baldwin Project, for short) in 1999. Then, several years later, we began publishing a selection of those titles in print editions, followed by ebook publications. Publication of new print and ebooks continues to this day, in addition to the periodic release of new ebook treasuries and sets. Our mission of republishing books from the golden age of children's literature remains unchanged; each day we aspire to make classic children's literature more accessible to individuals, schools, and families around the world.
Who we are
Lisa Ripperton
Founder, Co-owner
Nate Ripperton
Founder, Co-owner
Our Other Projects
Gateway to the Classics
At Gateway to the Classics readers can find one of the best online collections of classic literature for children and the young at heart.
Our library of books to read online includes hundreds of titles in a wide variety of genres, with special emphasis on history, literature, and natural history. In addition to the thousands of stories we make available to readers, we now offer a collection of over 2500 poems. A small number of audio recordings of books, poems, and songs are also accessible from some devices.
Additionally, we are delighted to offer our popular Kindergarten Read Aloud Banquet and First Grade Read Aloud Banquet at Gateway to the Classics at no charge to readers around the world.
With a smartphone, tablet, or computer, readers can readily access a new story, song, poem, and rhyme with accompanying illustrations every day of the year. Look for our blog posts at A Culture of Reading that introduce the Kindergarten Banquet and the First Grade Banquet, as well as offer more ideas about how to use them.
A Culture of Reading
Our blog, A Culture of Reading, is dedicated to promoting literacy and education by helping others establish a culture of reading in their homes and beyond. Here we write about books we love, the process of learning to read, the benefits of reading aloud, how to establish good reading habits, and more.
We use this site to inform readers about new titles, new offerings, and new features at Gateway to the Classics, as well as to encourage readers to explore more of our existing content. We also feature print books we have published at Yesterday's Classics and give detailed reviews and suggestions for their use.
This post, This Way to Christmas with Ruth Sawyer, gives a glimpse of how we may help you discover titles available at Gateway to the Classics, and incorporate them into your reading. "A History for Peter" Shows Us What It Means To Be American, on the other hand, is an example of one of our posts about the print books we publish through Yesterday's Classics.
You can find a complete listing of all our posts on our Directory page. We invite you to join the conversation at A Culture of Reading!
The Baldwin Online Children's Literature Project
Beginning in 1999 Yesterday's Classics offered free online texts for two decades through the Baldwin Online Children's Literature Project at mainlesson.com. Now we offer those free online texts and many more at Gateway to the Classics.