What a Surprise : a Mechanical Book for Children

What a surprise : a mechanical book for children. by Constance M. Lowe London : Ernest Nister ; New York : E.P. Dutton & Co., [between 1900 and 1920] Z1033.T689 L69 1900 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Library.
Ernest Nister (1842-1909) specialized in colored toy and movable picture books. He used a wide range of movable techniques to intrigue children. The popular late nineteenth-century format of changing pictures capitalizes on a child's fascination with peek-a-boo. Nister animated his pages with simple slats, dimensional scenes, and remarkable pinwheel mechanics. With these basic paper tools, he created fantastic transformations of dissolving pictures, based on the venetian blind principle. "The illustrations in these books had a picture divided into four or five equal sections by corresponding horizontal or vertical slits. When a tab at the side or bottom of the illustration was pulled, the picture 'transformed' into another picture"