This is a rare Australian example from the hugely popular late Victorian 'toy book' genre of children's literature. Part of Calvert's Australian Picture Books series, this 12-page story book takes a traditional European rhyme, This is the Hut that Jack Built and places it in a uniquely Australian setting.
Innovations in colour printing during the last third of the 19th century were used to create brightly coloured toy books like this one. The popularity of these books and the advances in print technology ultimately led to the birth of the picture book as we know it today.
European toy book publishers often commissioned well-known artists to illustrate nursery rhymes. However, the brothers William and Samuel Calvert engraved blocks from their own drawings to keep the costs down. | 
