Early
Children's
Literature
Early Children's Literature 18th century to the present: Authors of Early
Children's Literature Robinson Crusoe, Little Women, Tarzan of the Apes,
Treasure Island, Gulliver's Travels, Little Red Riding Hood, Black Beauty
Have you found an Early Children's Book at a garage sale; I would be keeping it in the vault. They must be keep complete, clean and in their original bindings out of the hands of juvenile owners. If I were to take a H. G. Wells Time Machine out for a spin, I would travel back in time and pick up some fine copies of stories and picture books that have never been in the hands of those juvenile owners. This observation applies to all literature, the older the book the less likely is it to survived intact so be careful with them. It is surprising how many have, in fact, withstood the ravages of time on the shelves of the book collectors, libraries, the antiquarian dealers book rooms, devouring pests, wars, divorce, and the invisible man.
Very few books for the amusement of child literature came into existence before the middle of the 18th century. Early Children's Literature consisted of devotional manuals and books used in the classroom. In the stone age days, children read early children's books for pleasure and were not in the least interested in those instructional school books. Can you blame them? John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1679) and The Divine Emblems (1686) were books created for boys and girls. Robinson Crusoe (1719), The History of Peter the Great (1722) and The Life and Adventure of the Famous Captain Singleton (1720) were written by Alexander Defoe (1660-1731). Dean Swift's Gulliver's Travels(1726) and The Battle of the Books (1704) were claimed as their own by the young readers soon appeared in the bookshops. Many of them knew some of the stories of Aesop's Fables by heart. Aesop was a slave in ancient Greece born in 600 BC, but eventually became freed by his Master as the story goes.
Rare books on natural history, specially written for children, seemed to have appeared during the last quarter of the 18th century. The natural History of Birds; Intended for the Amusement and Instruction of children in 1791, by Samuel Galton, who was a member of the Lunar Society, the scientific society which meet at Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, now a museum open to the public in Birmingham, wrote the natural History of Quadrupeds for the Instruction of Young Persons followed in two volumes in 1801. Miss Priscilla Wakefield (1751-1832), wrote her famous book, The Juvenile Anecdotes (1795), which I believe was founded on fact was completed with a large folding hand-colored map of the world, and and later she came out with the Instinct Displayed (1811).
Original stories inspired by fairy-tales became the bestsellers. John Ruskin's (1819-1900) The King of the Golden River, 1851, published anonymously, and I don't know if Sesame and Lilies (1865) and the Stones of Venice (1851) were great sellers. William Makepeace Thackeray's (1811-1863) The Rose and the Ring (1855), Prince Bulbo (1855), and the Christmas Book (?) were published under his assumed name of M. A. Titmarsh, thought to be a selling feature. The Water Babies (1863) and Westward Ho (1855) by Charles Kingley (1819-1875), had to prove something to the world, but with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1872) by 'Lewis Carroll', were pure fantasyland for any young reader who enjoyed these works.
Children in the seventh century loved their heroes by strength of arms in those usually 16 pages in length pamphlets, about princesses and the dragons of the Middle Ages like devouring our modern day comic books. Children could live out their dreams by reading The History of Guy of Warwick, Robin Hood, Friar Bacon, Tom Thumb, Goody Two-Shoes, Red Riding Hood, Blue Beard, Sleeping Beauty, Puss-in-Boots and many others. Louisa M. Alcott (1832-88) produced Little Women & Good Wives, 1868-69, which ranks number one for juvenile book readers, along with Flower Fable (1848) which was her first book and Hospital Sketches (1863). Francis Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924), wrote her story of Little Lord Fauntleroy1885- 1886 as a serial in St. Nicholas magazine later in book form. That Lass O" Lowrie's (1877), and Two Little Pilgrims' Progress (1895) were her other works.
The latter half of the 19th century witnessed the birth of the adventure story for boys. R. M. Ballantyne (1825-94) was the first from 1848 onwards to create straightforward adventure stories set in well researched factual surroundings.. His first book, Hudson Bay, ( The Hudson Bay Company Canada,1848) was privately printed and then came the Snowflakes and Sunbeams; or, The Young Fur Traders (1855), which devoted his writing career to boys' adventure stories, became a highly collectible book with a publication of a hundred. He is remembered best for Coral Island (1858), a book which exerted a strong influence over Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94), promoting his love for the islands, he wrote In the South Seas(1896) took a vacation there along with one of the best classics I have ever read, Treasure Island, (1883), a book that was worth its weight in pirate's gold and don't forget The New Arabian Nights in (1892). W. H. G. Kingston (1814-1880), remembered for Peter the Whaler (1851),Twice Lost (1881, were the only ones dated. In the Wilds of Florida (?) and many others, mostly tales of the sea were undated. G. A. Henty (1832-1902) followed in Sir Walter Scott footsteps rather than Ballantynes' wanderings and adventure stories set in a factual historical background, With Clive in India (1884), Under Wellington's Command (1898), and March to Magdala (1868), being typical titles. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines (1885),Allan Quatermain (1888), Queen Sheba's Ring (1910) and The People of The Mist (1894) were greatly admired by the young people and then along came that silly H. G. Wells (1866 - 1946) who thought he invented The Time Machine (1889), became The Invisible Man (1897), and flew off to be The First Men in the Moon (1900-01)(We faked the Apollo landings on the moon); I'd throw them in in the science fiction bin.
School stories flourished during the same period. Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857), Tom Brown At Oxford (1861) and The Scouring of The White Horse (1859) by Thomas Hughes (1822-96), depicted schoolboy bullies and loyalties in public schools similar to what is happening today. Talbot Baines Reed (1852-93) style of story writing was similar to both Hughes and Farrar's in that he produced The Fifth Form at St Dominic's (1887), The Cock-House at Fellsgarth, (1891) and The History of the Old English Letter Foundries (1887). The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch appeared undated under an R.T.S imprint. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), broke traditions with his Stalky & Co.(1899), The Jungle Book (1894) and The Second Jungle Book (1895),a fine pair of which, in the original blue cloth, will cost you big time. The jungle and the wild animals friends were carried on with Tarzan of the Apes(1912), The Return of Tarzan (1913), and The Beasts of Tarzan (1914) by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875 - 1950), which must have the imprint of A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, to be the first edition. Anna Sewell (1820-1878) autobiographical story of a horse called Black Beauty (1878) was her one and only, but was cherished by everyone. Beatrice Potter (1866-1943) provided us with The Tale Of Peter Rabbit (1901) published by Strangeways & Sons in an edition of 250 copies. She wrote and illustrated little books like The Story Of Miss Moppet (1906), The Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse (1910), The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes (1911), The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin (1903) among others.
Children's poetry of the same period included Christina Rossetti's Sing-Song (1872) delightfully illustrated by Arthur Hughes, as well her Speaking Likeness (1874); Stevenson's A Child' Garden Verses (1885) Belloc's A Bad Child's Book of Beasts (1896) More Beasts for Worse Children (1897) and The Moral Alphabet (1899). The tradition was continued by Walter de la Mare, Eleanor Farjeon and A. A. Milne, to T. S. Eliot (1888- 1965), with Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, 1939.
Collector in this field can consult: Osborne Collection of
Early Children's
Books, 1958, edited by Judith St. John, published by Toronto Public Library,
Canada; The Child and His Book, 1891, by E. M. Field; Pages and Pictures from
Forgotten Children's books, 1898, by A. W. Tuer; English Children's Books, 1954,
by Percy Muir.
Illustrated
Early Children's Books from University of California Collections, 1550-1990
Aesop
Hugo, Victor
Alcott,
Louisa
Jacobs, Joseph
Aldis,
Dorothy Keats, John
Allingham,
William
Kipling, Rudyard
Andersen, Hans
Christian Knight, Eric
Angeli, Marguerite
de
Lang, Andrew
Asbjornsen, Peter
Christian
Lawson, Robert
Bacon,
Peggy
Leaf, Munro
Barrie, J.
M. Le Grand
Baum, L.
Frank
Lear, Edward
Belloc, Hilaire Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Bemelmans,
Ludwig Mabie, Hamilton
Benson,
Sally
Masefield, John
Beskow,
Elsa McGinley, Phyllis
Bianco, Margery
Williams Menotti, Gian-Carlo
Blake,
William
Milne, A. A.
Boyden, Polly
Chase Moore, Clement Clarke
Brown, Margaret
Wise Morley, Christopher
Browning, Robert Nerman, Einar
Brunhoff, Jean
de
O'Hara, Mary
Burgess, Gelett
Potter, Beatrix
Burgess, Thornton
W. Prokofieff, Serge
Carey, M.
C.
Pyle, Howard
Carroll,
Lewis
Rackham, Arthur
Clark,
Margery
Richards, Laura
Collodi,
C.
Riley, James Whitcomb
Cox,
Palmer
Rossetti, Christina
D'Aulaire, Ingri and Edgar Parin
Salten, Felix
Defoe,
Daniel
Scott, Walter
De la Mare,
Walter
Seredy, Kate
Dickens,
Charles
Seuss, Dr.
Emerson, Ralph
Waldo
Sewell, Anna
Emett,
Rowland
Shakespeare, William
Farjeon,
Eleanor
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
Field,
Eugene
Spyri, Johanna
Field,
Rachel
Steel, Flora Annie
Fyleman,
Rose
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Grahame,
Kenneth
Swift, Jonathan
Greenaway,
Kate
Tarkingon, Booth
Grimm, The
Brothers
Taylor, Jane
Gruelle,
Johnny
Tennyson, Alfred
Harris, Joel
Chandler
Terhune, Albert Payson
Hemans, Felicia
Dorothea
Twain, Mark
Henry,
Marguerite
Wadsworth, Wallace
Hoffman, Dr.
Heinrich
Whitman, Walt
Holmes, Oliver
Wendell Whittier, John Greenleaf
Housman, A.
E. Wordsworth, William
Wyss, Johann
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