Children's Books in England: Five Centuries of Social Life

Abstract

I am delighted to have found a copy of this book at a reasonable price. One of its eight illustrations is from a fable book, Edward Baldwin's Fables Ancient and Modern, adapted for the use of children (facing 202). Chapter II is given largely to fable editions. Darton works his way carefully through the first 250 years of English fable-book-printing to arrive at the point of Newbery's A Little Pretty Pocket Book in 1744, which Darton takes as the first commercially conceived children's book, meant primarily to amuse this particular population. Darton's survey includes insightful comments on Caxton, Henryson, Bullokar, Brinsley, Ogilby, Barlow/Behn, L'Estrange, Locke, and Croxall. He goes on to speak of Newbery's Fables in Verse for the Improvement of Young and Old by Abraham Aesop, Esq., with short comments afterwards on Bewick and Dodsley. I find his prose dense and rewarding.