Cooke's inventory includes "1 great Bible and 4 olde bookes," which as
they were "olde," and he was clearly not a book-buyer, very probably came
with him in the ship. In fact, hardly an adult of the Leyden colonists,
the inventory of whose estate at death we possess, but left one or more
books which may have been his companions on the voyage.

Some of the early forms of British and Dutch calendars, "annuals," and
agricultural "hand-books," it is certain were brought over by several
families, and were doubtless much consulted and well-thumbed "guides,
counsellors, and friends" in the households of their possessors. The
great preponderance of reading matter brought by the little colony was,
however, unquestionably of the religious controversial order, which had
been so much a part of their lives, and its sum total was considerable.
There are intimations, in the inventories of the Fathers, of a few works
of historical cast, but of these not many had yet been printed.
"Caesar's Commentaries," a "History of the World," and a "History of
Turkey" on Standish's shelves, with the two Dictionaries and "Peter
Martyr on Rome" on Dr. Fuller's, were as likely to have come in the first
ship, and to have afforded as much satisfaction to the hungry readers of
the little community as any of the books we find named in the lists of
their little stock. It is pathetic to note, in these days of utmost
prodigality in juvenile literature, that for the Pilgrim children, aside
from the "Bible stories," some of the wonderful and mirth-provoking
metrical renderings of the "Psalme booke," and the "horne booke," or
primer (the alphabet and certain elementary contributions in verse or
prose, placed between thin covers of transparent horn for protection),
there was almost absolutely nothing in the meagre book-freight of the
Pilgrim ark. "Milk for Babes," whether as physical or mental pabulum,
was in poor supply aboard the MAY-FLOWER.