Officially storybook dolls refer to the adorable little dolls made by Nancy Ann Dolls, but unofficially the name has grown to describe all the similar small dolls that were made representing different charactors. These little dolls were first made of bisque and composition, then celluloid and hard plastics. Very similar dolls are still made today of vinyl.

The photos above are some early ones of my collection. Wow, has it grown since then. The dolls in the photo on the left are composition and to the right are the celluloid and hard plastics. Not only did these dolls come with factory made gowns, but they were also sold undressed. There were many patterns for crochet and ribbon dresses to be made at home for these dolls, and this is were they get the name dress me dolls.

I think these little dolls are really underappreciated, particularly the ones with the wonderful crocheted dresses. Those dresses are very time consuming to make and you really have to know what you're doing to be able to work well in thread crochet. The tinier the thread the harder to work with.

There are a number of books of patterns to make these dresses that came out in the 50's. Usually when you find these dolls you can determine easily which outfit was made and which book it came from. The majority came from a book called "Dolls and Dolls" which was published in 1951.