The Child Reader 1700-1840

Children''s literature as we know it today first came into existence in Britain in the eighteenth century. This is the first major study to consider who the first users of this new product were which titles they owned how they acquired and used theirbooks and what they thought of them. Evidence of these things is scarce. But by drawing on a diverse array of sources including inscriptions and marginalia letters and diaries inventories and parish records and portraits and pedagogical treatises and by pioneering exciting new methodologies it has been possible to reconstruct both sociological profiles of consumers and the often touching experiences of individual children. Grenby''s discoveries about the owners of children''s books and their use abuse and perception of this new product will be key to understanding how children''s literature was able to become established as a distinct and flourishing element of print culture--