From Prickly Pear Blossoms by William Hamilton Nation, 1900.

An illustration from The Child's Own Poetry Book by Horace George Groser (1887).  The caption reads: "They called me a destructive child."

From The Works of Charles Dickens, Household Edition.

Here's a precursor to the film The Science of Sleep, from A String of Chinese Peach Stones by William Arthur Cornaby (1895).

An illustration from an 1881 issue of The Quiver magazine.  The caption reads: "I find such quantities of strange toys about the house."

An illustration from an 1884 issue of Little Wide Awake magazine.

We dug up a quotation to help explain the illustration (from Punch, 1842):

"Many scholars do not use the term 'doll' for the ritual figures used by adult women, due to a belief that this association with children's toys trivializes the ritual figures." —Philip M. Peek, African Folklore: An Encyclopedia

A doll possesses a "dim, vague, blurred, vicarious, secondary consciousness of a soul embodied in an intensely loved but inanimate companion" and looks forward to encountering "the legendary doll of dolls" (John Cowper Poyws, Porius).

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

An illustration from a 1905 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "One of the new German kindergarten appliances."

"The Runaway Doll": an illustration from an 1872 issue of Our Boys and Girls magazine.

An illustration from an 1887 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "The Chinese must go."

"The strange magic emanating from children's toys . . . often exercise[s] a greater healing power over a heart wearied by life than the most sublime work of art."
—Gustav Meyrink, The Green Face