Charlotte M. Yonge. 1823-. Author: Heir of Redclyffe; The Kings of England; The Chaplet of Pearls.
Mrs. Mary Louisa Whateley. 1824–1889. Went to Cairo and lived from 1861–1889, where she had a Moslem school. Wrote chiefly about Egypt. Fairy tale influence. Author: Reverses; or, the Fairfax Family. Reference: Hays’ Women of To-day; London Times (March 12, 1889).
Mrs. Dinah Maria Mulock Craik. 1826–1887. Pseudo-fairy tale writer. Author: Adventures of a Brownie, etc.
Juliana Horatio Ewing. 1841–1885. Reference: J. H. Ewing and Her Books, by Horatia K. T. Gatty; D. N. B.
Ann Fraser Tytler. Daughter of Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselel. Author: Leila on the Island; Leila in England; Leila at Home.
II. The American Side.
As for the American phase of the subject, we have already indicated three stages by which the Colonial or Revolutionary reader was given his “New England Primer,” his “Mother Goose,” and his Thomas books obtained directly from Newbery of England. The whole intellectual activity was in the hands of the clergy; even the governing body pretended to be God-fearing men, and were prone to listen to the dictates of the ministry. The austere demands of the Puritan Sunday, more than anything else, caused the writing of religious books, and so firm a hold did the Sabbath genre of literature take, that, in 1870, it was still in full sway, and even now exists to a limited extent. The history of education in America for a long while has to do with denominational schools, and teaching was largely left in the hands of the clergy. So that we shall find our early writer of “juveniles” either a man of the church, or his wife; prompted solely by the desire to supply that character of story which would fitly harmonise with the sanctity of Sunday, rather than with the true excellence of all days. If, in the school, a book was needed, it was far better to write one than to trust to others for what might turn out to be heretical.[43] The Rev. Jedidiah Morse began his literary career in the capacity of teacher; Noah Webster’s idea was at first to prepare a treatise on grammar which could be used in the schools. These two were the most scientific thinkers of their period. The list on page 158, indicating but a few of the forgotten and only faintly remembered authors of early days, fairly well represents the general trend; in the writing done, there were the same morals, the similar luckless children, subject to the same thin sentiment of piety and rectitude as we discovered holding sway in England for nearly two centuries. The name of Peter Parley is no longer familiar to children, and a crusade is fast being formed against the Jacob Abbott class of book. The type of writer was the kind that debated for or against slavery in terms of the Bible. The Puritan soil was rich for the rapid growth of the Hannah More seed, and no one assisted in sowing it to greater extent than Samuel G. Goodrich (1793–1860). He may symbolise for us the reading child in New England at the beginning of the nineteenth century; his training, his daily pursuits, as told in his autobiography, supply pages of invaluable social colour.[44]
“It is difficult,” so he says, “... in this era of literary affluence, almost amounting to surfeit, to conceive of the poverty of books suited to children in the days of which I write. Except the New England Primer—the main contents of which were the Westminster Catechism—and some rhymes, embellished with hideous cuts of Adam’s Fall, in which ‘we sinned all’; the apostle and a cock crowing at his side, to show that ‘Peter denies his Lord and cries’; Nebuchadnezzar crawling about like a hog, the bristles sticking out of his back, and the like—I remember none that were in general use among my companions. When I was about ten years old, my father brought from Hartford ‘Gaffer Ginger,’ ‘Goody Two Shoes,’ and some of the rhymes and jingles now collected under the name of ‘Mother Goose,’ with perhaps a few other toy books of that day. These were a revelation. Of course I read them, but I must add, with no relish.”
The confession follows that when he was given “Red Riding Hood,” he was filled with contempt; and in this spirit he condemns such nonsense as “hie diddle diddle,” which is not fit for Christian parents to use. He found some considerable pleasure in “Robinson Crusoe,” but it was not until he met with Miss Hannah More’s tracts that he might be said to have enjoyed with relish any book at all.
Thus his reading tastes foreshadowed his literary activity. When he turned writer, he aimed for the style which distinguishes Mary Howitt, Mrs. Hofland, and Miss Strickland; he disclaimed any interest in the nursery book that was unreasonable and untruthful, for so he considered most of the stories of fancy. In his books, his desire was chiefly “to feed the young mind upon things wholesome and pure, instead of things monstrous, false, and pestilent.... In short, that the element of nursery books should consist of beauty instead of deformity, goodness instead of wickedness, decency instead of vulgarity.” In this manner, the mould of the Peter Parley tales was shaped. Goodrich at first adopted no philosophy of construction, so he says; he aimed to tell his story as he would have spoken it to a group of boys. But after a while, a strong sense of the child’s gradual growth took hold of him; he recognised psychological stages, and he saw that, as in teaching, his books must consider that children’s “first ideas are simple and single, and formed of images of things palpable to the senses.”