The Child Reader, 1700-1840Children's literature, as we know it today, first came into existence in Britain in the eighteenth century. This is the first major study to consider who the first users of this new product were, which titles they owned, how they acquired and used their books, and what they thought of them. Evidence of these things is scarce. But by drawing on a diverse array of sources, including inscriptions and marginalia, letters and diaries, inventories and parish records, and portraits and pedagogical treatises, and by pioneering exciting new methodologies, it has been possible to reconstruct both sociological profiles of consumers and the often touching experiences of individual children. Grenby's discoveries about the owners of children's books, and their use, abuse and perception of this new product, will be key to understanding how children's literature was able to become established as a distinct and flourishing element of print culture. |
Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction | 1 |
Chapter 2 Owners | 36 |
Chapter 3 Books | 93 |
Chapter 4 Acquisition | 139 |
Chapter 5 Use | 194 |
Chapter 6 Attitudes | 254 |
Chapter 7 Conclusions | 284 |
| 290 | |
| 310 | |
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Common terms and phrases
adults Amusement Anon appear Arnaud Berquin authors Autobiography Barbauld Bible booksellers boys Britain British Cambridge University Press catalogue Catherine Hutton chapbooks chapter Charles Charlotte child reader childhood children's books children's literature children's reading circulating libraries collections consumers copy Cotsen culture daughter designed diary Dorothy Kilner eighteenth-century children Eliza Elizabeth Elizabeth Appleton Ellenor Fenn Emily Shore England entertaining evidence fairy female Fergus fiction frontispiece gifts girls Goody Two-Shoes Governess Guardian of Education Harris History Hockliffe inscribed inscriptions instance instruction James Jane John Marshall John Newbery Johnson Journal Juvenile Library Kilner Lady learning lessons Letters literacy London long eighteenth century marginalia Maria Edgeworth Mary Anne Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck Mary Martha Sherwood Memoirs moral mother Newbery's novels Osborne Oxford parents perhaps popular practice printed purchase records religious Richard Robert Samuel Sarah Trimmer Sherwood stories Tabart texts Thomas titles UCLA William Darton William Godwin written wrote young