The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
VOLUME XVI. Early National Literature, Part II; Later National Literature, Part I.
§ 1. Didacticism of the Early Attempts
T
About midway in the eighteenth century, the desire to furnish amusement together with instruction, religious or mundane, ventured to show its head in reckless juveniles which came chiefly from the London shop of John Newbery. But it required half a century to convince parents that the combination was not pernicious—even parents who were allowing their children to read abridged editions of Clarissa and Tom Jones as well as Moll Flanders. As for the meagre American product, even The Children’s Magazine (Hartford, 1789) made almost no attempt to approach the child’s level. In Noah Webster’s Spelling Book (1783), eight short illustrated fables formed the only concession to childish interest. The solitary instance of the amusement book proper was Songs for the Nursery, an edition of Mother Goose published in Boston some seventy years before; and it remained solitary for almost as many to come. By 1800, however, the somewhat more humanized instruction of Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Trimmer and Miss Edgeworth and Miss More had crossed the water.