____________________________________________________Origins

PublishingEducational Theorists

Fun & Frivolity

* John Newberry (1744) – “A little Pretty Pocket Book”

Believed to be the 1st published book!

BUT children’s literature did not only include books for the reader’s pleasure, some being far from light-hearted, therefore literature read by children started much earlier

Courtesy Books

School Books Pic. 1

Religious Texts & Paper Pamphlets : * Chapbooks ( Pic. 1 - 17 th Century)

- Political and Religious Ideas

After the Star Chamber (1) was abolished * “Small Merry Books” (Pic. 2 - collected by Samuel Pepys)

* Sermons and Tracts Pic. 2

(1) English Court of Law that sat at the Royal Palace of Westminster from the late 15th century

until 1641. (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Chamber)

Before the mid 18th century, book publishing lacked seriousness of purpose.John Newberry (1744-

1767) changed this with his great talent

for understanding the new market for

children’s books and school books.

Educational TheoristsThe education of the young was becoming of increasing significance as social expectations developed, and the middle classes— including women—had more time for the leisurely pursuit of reading. Good schooling was becoming a necessity.

•John Locke […] recommended a carefully judged curriculum designed to meet the needs of pupils on the basis that knowledge should be impressed on young and untouched minds: the tabula rasa or blank sheet principle. His argument was hugely influential. At least fourteen editions of his educational treatise were published between 1693 and 1772 and provided a focus for writers and publishers in their provision of a literature to feed the demand from schools and parents (Pickering 1981: passim);•One of the first books to expound upon schooling for girls: Sarah Fielding’s The Governess: or Little Female Academy (1749);Ellenor Fenn, in Cobwebs to Catch Flies (c.1783) she appealed to parents as much as to children: ‘if the human mind be a tabula rasa—you to whom it is entrusted should be cautious what is written upon it’. Sarah Trimmer, specially concerned with the moral impact of writing for children. Her Fabulous Histories. Designed for the Instruction of Children, respecting their Treatment of Animals (1786), later better known as The History of the Robins, aimed to teach children their duty towards brute creation. In Prints of Scripture History (1786), and numerous other pious works, she provided children with a grounding in sound religious teaching. Her Little Spelling Book for Young Children (2nd edn, 1786) and Easy Lessons for Young Children (1787) were also popular and went into several editions.

Newberry’s successors carried out his tradition:Newberry’s successors carried out his tradition:

* Books containing moral material in a light-hearted guise were becoming commonplace;

* Children’s publishers also dealt in the production of maps and games; books were not the only educational materials to provide amusement;

* By the late eighteenth century publishing for children had become a sufficiently profitable undertaking for several major London publishers and many provincial chapbook publishers to be issuing a range of children’s items: for instruction and amusement; The quality and variety of production had also improved immeasurably.

Despite the prevalence of moral tales and didacticism, there were, therefore, items to amuse and divert children towards the end of the century in addition to the chapbook literature of the period. […] Mother Goose’s Melody, a 96-page Newbery book in two parts—with fifty-one songs and lullabies in Part One—is particularly important because of the number of times it was to be reprinted in Britain and America. (Opie and Opie, 1951/1980:33).

In conclusion: By 1800, the children’s book trade was well established and children had a wide ranging literature at their disposal. Not all of it was just for entertainment, but increasingly it was being written with their developmental needs in mind. From their origins in the formal writing of the early schoolbooks, Puritan texts, popular literature and fables, children’s books had emerged as a class of literature. The book trade was poised to develop this even further and

to exploit the technical innovations of the next century.

Axtell, J.L. (1968) The Educational Writings of John Locke, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cressy, D. (1980) Literacy and the Social Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Darton, F.J.H. (1982) Children’s Books in England: Five Centuries of Social Life, 3rd edn,

ed. B.Alderson, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Opie, I. and Opie P. (1951/1980) The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, Oxford:

Oxford University Press. Pickering, S.F. (1981) John Locke and Children’s Books in Eighteenth Century England,

Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press. Roscoe, S. (1973) John Newbery and his Successors 1740–1814: A Bibliography, Wormley:

Five Owls Press. Spufford, M. (1981) Small Books and Pleasant Histories: Popular Fiction and its

Readership in Seventeenth Century England, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whalley, J.I. and Chester, T.R. (1988) A History of Children’s Book Illustration, London:

John Murray/The Victoria and Albert Museum.

Further Reading Jackson, M.V. (1989) Engines of Instruction, Mischief and Magic: Children’s Literature in

England from its Beginnings to 1839, Aldershot: Scolar Press. Opie, I. and Opie P. (1974) The Classic Fairy Tales, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Plumb, J.H. (1975) ‘The new world of children in eighteenth century England’, Past and

Present 67:64–95.