And Sermons are less read than Tales.
London: Printed for T. Carnan, Successor to Mr. J. Newbery in St. Paul’s Church Yard. Price one shilling.”
In an enveloping cautionary story, there is some account of a gigantic Twelfth Day Cake; but the book consists chiefly of “Pieces”, which include the story of “Inkle and Yarico”, taken by Addison from Ligon’s Account of Barbados (Spectator, No. 11), “versified by a Lady”, Addison’s hymns; Pope’s Universal Prayer; “The Progress of Life”, an Eastern story from the Rambler; Parnell’s “Hermit”; the character of Antiope from Fénélon’s Telemachus, translated in 1742, and the King’s speech to Westmoreland (Henry V. iv. 3), a sign of the revived interest in Shakespeare.
This is almost a perfect specimen of the Lilliputian Miscellany.
From Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes (1812-16):—“It is not perhaps generally known that to Mr. Griffith Jones, and a brother of his, Mr. Giles Jones, in conjunction with Mr. John Newbery, the public are indebted for the origin of those numerous and popular little books for the amusement and instruction of children which have been ever since received with universal approbation. The Lilliputian histories of Goody Two-Shoes, Giles Ginger-bread, Tommy Trip, etc., etc., are remarkable proofs of the benevolent minds of the projectors of this plan of instruction, and respectable instances of the accommodation of superior talents to the feeble intellects of infantine felicity.”
Examples of grammatical faults in Goody Two-Shoes:—
Ch. vi.—“She was in Hopes he would have went to the Clerk.”