click on any picture to navigate to that authors menu.
Introduction.
Picture this: a group of people are discussing authors, showing each other books, variously sitting, mumbling, standing, gesturing, and trying to decide who to include on a website of important, largely forgotten, children’s lit authors:
Ok, how about this one? She was a well-respected, prolific writer in total control of her career, and known for her philanthropy, too.
Fenn?!? Are you kidding? Didacticism incarnate, sheesh, she was a grammarian! Besides, look at all those comments about not letting the servants teach your kids. Who else have we got?
We have to have Fielding, of course: first novel, first school story, and all girls all the time.
Yea, I guess. We’ll have to say something about Henry, though, with his advice, his attempt to edit, overshadow her…
Hey, what about Maria Edgeworth? I mean, we have to have Rosamond!
Yea, ok. At least she was well-known and highly paid. She did influence Walter Scott and Jane Austen…
(Together) ALL ROADS LEAD TO JANE.
But what about those unclassifiable politics, and that comment about different classes needing different education? We’ll have to say something about that.
Trimmer?
THE CHURCH LADY?!? I’m not talking to you.
This is a silly scene, but you take my point. These authors have either been trivialized or ignored for various reasons at various times. All of these reasons are modern values we’ve tried to apply to an era where they simply don’t fit. All of the authors here were accomplished writers, well aware of the needs of their audiences, their society, and of their own desires as authors. They wrote to educate children in entertaining ways. They embedded moral and social values in their stories, as all children’s authors do did then, and frankly, as most do now. That appears to be one of the most recurring, natural functions of children’s literature in any society. Of course their stories reflect their political and religious beliefs, both in their support and criticism of the structures of those beliefs in their time. They shaped their stories around their knowledge of and their love for children. They shaped their stories around the hopes they had for the future of those children and their society. They shaped their stories around their own vision as authors, and they shaped the literature.
Shaping the future.
These women lived in times of great societal upheaval, the French Revolution being the most obvious and prevalent. Great change can bring great opportunity for new art, new thinking, for shaping a new future. They took that opportunity to shape the future by shaping what children read. In the arena of moral guidance and development, these authors both reveal and help to construct a shift from outer hierarchical authority to inner rational choice. Sarah Fielding’s The Governess reveals a change from the hierarchical authority of Mrs. Teachum (whose authority comes from her husband) to that of Jenny Peace, who guides her peers to self-reflection and moral choices. Ellenor Fenn builds moral examples into her depiction of a sunny middle class “mythic norm”, teaching reading, spelling and grammar in the process. Maria Edgeworth teaches through example. Her child characters learn right thinking and right action through experience and natural consequences. They also learn to navigate the new world of markets as responsible consumers in a new type of secular middle class morality. Edgeworth accomplishes by leading her characters through a process of guided trial and error. Sarah Trimmer wrote the religious instruction for children she saw as critical to her view of the future. She would step beyond that, however, to pen one of the most influential extended fables ever written before Watership Down. Her family of anthropomorphized robins in Fabulous Histories (1786) delivered her political and religious vision for the future. Their story was so popular it was reprinted and rewritten in various forms into the twentieth century (Schnorrenberg, ODNB online). They all wrote of the societal upheaval they saw in terms of the changes they wanted to see come out of it.
Shifting authority.
If you look over the whole course of their works, you begin to see one of those changes. We've already seen a subtle shift away from hierarchy to individual, male to female, in Fielding. This is part of a larger change. The reason for moral behavior had been slowly shifting for some time from a model based on God and the afterlife to a model based on individual happiness within society. This is the effect of the Enlightenment on the motivation to be moral. These authors reflect the growth of rational morality. Increasingly, they tell children within their books indirectly and in their prefaces directly, that if they are good, they will be happy. If you do your part, you duty in society, we will be happy and you will be loved. Ellenor Fenn's Preface to Fables in Monosyllables is typical. She tells the child she is addressing: "you take pains to learn what is fit for you...read well for your age, and do all things as your mam-ma bids you. If you be so good, we shall all love you." (1783, vi) In this one short passage, Fenn places education and obedience firmly with the realm of what constitues a moral act and places that morality within a relational social sphere. The reward is within that same social sphere and it is present day. God and the after-life are nowhere to be seen. Critics of the time would notice this with Edgeworth, who came in for scathing criticism on the publication of her father's memoirs. The Edgeworth's secular, scientific lifestyle were seen to be irreligious, and the Memoirs were "comprehensively rubbished." (Orlando online) Trimmer reacted to all that secularism by writing religious education books for children as well as engaging in some of the earliest serious criticism of children's literature in The Guardian of Education (1802). She had an impact in her work for the poor and in her sunday schools, but secularism and rational morality were here to stay. These authors reflected changes to the basic impulse for education and for moral behavior, writing stories for children that embedded their vision.
Shaping education.
That vision for the future was rooted in changes to education. These women advocated for expanded education in for women and for all others left out of and educational system. They not only wrote on this directly in books on education, and in the prefaces and dedications in their books for children. There were also shining examples of educated women. Sarah Fielding was a successful novelist who experimented with structures and narrative techniques throughout her career, as well as writing a ground breaking book for and about school girls. Ellenor Fenn was an influential educator and grammarian, who strenuously advocated for mothers to become well educated enough to feel adequate as their children’s first teachers, thus claiming the authority of a responsibility they already had. She and Edgeworth were firm believers in the principle that learning should be fun. Maria Edgeworth and her father were among the first educators with data behind their methods. There were 22 children in the family and they kept notes. They also educated daughters as thoroughly as sons. Maria read economic theory as part of her lessons and as preparation for running her father’s estate. Her Letters for Literary Ladies was an intelligent and witty response to Thomas Day’s expression of that era’s distrust of educated women, especially educated women authors. Day was the famous, eccentric author of The History of Sandford and Merton (1783) and her father’s best friend. Penning an ideological smack-down aimed at him was no mean feat, and this was one of her first published works. Sarah Trimmer advocated for education for all. She was instrumental in the Sunday and charity school movement, a precursor to universal education in Britain. Fenn was also instrumental in developing a school for the children of Dereham. They fought for expanded education and
Shaping the literature.
These authors were, above all, authors. They followed their vision for their work. They wrote and experimented, developing structures, settings and narrative styles that we recognize in children’s literature today. Fielding introduced the novel for children, the story within a story, and the school story. Fenn wrote her own version of fables and Trimmer expanded the idea of telling allegorical stories with animals into full length tales. Fenn and Edgeworth developed graduated readers, and both were keen observers of children, knowing how they think, adept at sparking their interest and speaking to them at their level. Edgeworth further knew, respected and included the voices of other classes and cultures. Hers were perhaps the first realist children’s books. These authors were very popular with the parents and children of their time and only fell out of favor as we defined different ideas of what an author is.
What is an author?
Those new definitions were based on male models of the “Romantic genius”, struggling with his muse. The idea of an author writing in the midst of her family, including children with all their noise and activity, as Edgeworth did regularly, became unrecognizable as “author”. The earlier feminine history of family involvement, coterie circles and collaborative efforts were seen as “unprofessional”, not serious.. We’ve also privileged paid work. (By that criterion, however, Edgeworth should have remained as well-known now as she was then, having earned over 11,000 pounds in her career, more than most authors until her friend Scott passed her by). Didactic and moral intent were also newly dismissed as authorship. Those distinctions were not a part of that era’s view of authorship, especially for children. Learnings and moral instruction were part of a child’s reading experience. It was what you did when writing for children. These authors made it easier, and they made if fun. That is part of their skill as authors.
Conclusion
Long trivialized or dismissed altogether for not fitting into new idea of what an author is, these authors deserve our attention. Their impact and influence is extensive and they should be known for it. They took their craft, their market and their audiences very seriously. We are indebted to them for the knowledge and inventiveness of their writing. Above all, we are indebted to them for their dedication to children and to the literature they gave them and bequeathed to us.
Picture this: a group of people are discussing authors, showing each other books, variously sitting, mumbling, standing, gesturing, and trying to decide who to include on a website of important, largely forgotten, children’s lit authors:
Ok, how about this one? She was a well-respected, prolific writer in total control of her career, and known for her philanthropy, too.
Fenn?!? Are you kidding? Didacticism incarnate, sheesh, she was a grammarian! Besides, look at all those comments about not letting the servants teach your kids. Who else have we got?
We have to have Fielding, of course: first novel, first school story, and all girls all the time.
Yea, I guess. We’ll have to say something about Henry, though, with his advice, his attempt to edit, overshadow her…
Hey, what about Maria Edgeworth? I mean, we have to have Rosamond!
Yea, ok. At least she was well-known and highly paid. She did influence Walter Scott and Jane Austen…
(Together) ALL ROADS LEAD TO JANE.
But what about those unclassifiable politics, and that comment about different classes needing different education? We’ll have to say something about that.
Trimmer?
THE CHURCH LADY?!? I’m not talking to you.
This is a silly scene, but you take my point. These authors have either been trivialized or ignored for various reasons at various times. All of these reasons are modern values we’ve tried to apply to an era where they simply don’t fit. All of the authors here were accomplished writers, well aware of the needs of their audiences, their society, and of their own desires as authors. They wrote to educate children in entertaining ways. They embedded moral and social values in their stories, as all children’s authors do did then, and frankly, as most do now. That appears to be one of the most recurring, natural functions of children’s literature in any society. Of course their stories reflect their political and religious beliefs, both in their support and criticism of the structures of those beliefs in their time. They shaped their stories around their knowledge of and their love for children. They shaped their stories around the hopes they had for the future of those children and their society. They shaped their stories around their own vision as authors, and they shaped the literature.
Shaping the future.
These women lived in times of great societal upheaval, the French Revolution being the most obvious and prevalent. Great change can bring great opportunity for new art, new thinking, for shaping a new future. They took that opportunity to shape the future by shaping what children read. In the arena of moral guidance and development, these authors both reveal and help to construct a shift from outer hierarchical authority to inner rational choice. Sarah Fielding’s The Governess reveals a change from the hierarchical authority of Mrs. Teachum (whose authority comes from her husband) to that of Jenny Peace, who guides her peers to self-reflection and moral choices. Ellenor Fenn builds moral examples into her depiction of a sunny middle class “mythic norm”, teaching reading, spelling and grammar in the process. Maria Edgeworth teaches through example. Her child characters learn right thinking and right action through experience and natural consequences. They also learn to navigate the new world of markets as responsible consumers in a new type of secular middle class morality. Edgeworth accomplishes by leading her characters through a process of guided trial and error. Sarah Trimmer wrote the religious instruction for children she saw as critical to her view of the future. She would step beyond that, however, to pen one of the most influential extended fables ever written before Watership Down. Her family of anthropomorphized robins in Fabulous Histories (1786) delivered her political and religious vision for the future. Their story was so popular it was reprinted and rewritten in various forms into the twentieth century (Schnorrenberg, ODNB online). They all wrote of the societal upheaval they saw in terms of the changes they wanted to see come out of it.
Shifting authority.
If you look over the whole course of their works, you begin to see one of those changes. We've already seen a subtle shift away from hierarchy to individual, male to female, in Fielding. This is part of a larger change. The reason for moral behavior had been slowly shifting for some time from a model based on God and the afterlife to a model based on individual happiness within society. This is the effect of the Enlightenment on the motivation to be moral. These authors reflect the growth of rational morality. Increasingly, they tell children within their books indirectly and in their prefaces directly, that if they are good, they will be happy. If you do your part, you duty in society, we will be happy and you will be loved. Ellenor Fenn's Preface to Fables in Monosyllables is typical. She tells the child she is addressing: "you take pains to learn what is fit for you...read well for your age, and do all things as your mam-ma bids you. If you be so good, we shall all love you." (1783, vi) In this one short passage, Fenn places education and obedience firmly with the realm of what constitues a moral act and places that morality within a relational social sphere. The reward is within that same social sphere and it is present day. God and the after-life are nowhere to be seen. Critics of the time would notice this with Edgeworth, who came in for scathing criticism on the publication of her father's memoirs. The Edgeworth's secular, scientific lifestyle were seen to be irreligious, and the Memoirs were "comprehensively rubbished." (Orlando online) Trimmer reacted to all that secularism by writing religious education books for children as well as engaging in some of the earliest serious criticism of children's literature in The Guardian of Education (1802). She had an impact in her work for the poor and in her sunday schools, but secularism and rational morality were here to stay. These authors reflected changes to the basic impulse for education and for moral behavior, writing stories for children that embedded their vision.
Shaping education.
That vision for the future was rooted in changes to education. These women advocated for expanded education in for women and for all others left out of and educational system. They not only wrote on this directly in books on education, and in the prefaces and dedications in their books for children. There were also shining examples of educated women. Sarah Fielding was a successful novelist who experimented with structures and narrative techniques throughout her career, as well as writing a ground breaking book for and about school girls. Ellenor Fenn was an influential educator and grammarian, who strenuously advocated for mothers to become well educated enough to feel adequate as their children’s first teachers, thus claiming the authority of a responsibility they already had. She and Edgeworth were firm believers in the principle that learning should be fun. Maria Edgeworth and her father were among the first educators with data behind their methods. There were 22 children in the family and they kept notes. They also educated daughters as thoroughly as sons. Maria read economic theory as part of her lessons and as preparation for running her father’s estate. Her Letters for Literary Ladies was an intelligent and witty response to Thomas Day’s expression of that era’s distrust of educated women, especially educated women authors. Day was the famous, eccentric author of The History of Sandford and Merton (1783) and her father’s best friend. Penning an ideological smack-down aimed at him was no mean feat, and this was one of her first published works. Sarah Trimmer advocated for education for all. She was instrumental in the Sunday and charity school movement, a precursor to universal education in Britain. Fenn was also instrumental in developing a school for the children of Dereham. They fought for expanded education and
Shaping the literature.
These authors were, above all, authors. They followed their vision for their work. They wrote and experimented, developing structures, settings and narrative styles that we recognize in children’s literature today. Fielding introduced the novel for children, the story within a story, and the school story. Fenn wrote her own version of fables and Trimmer expanded the idea of telling allegorical stories with animals into full length tales. Fenn and Edgeworth developed graduated readers, and both were keen observers of children, knowing how they think, adept at sparking their interest and speaking to them at their level. Edgeworth further knew, respected and included the voices of other classes and cultures. Hers were perhaps the first realist children’s books. These authors were very popular with the parents and children of their time and only fell out of favor as we defined different ideas of what an author is.
What is an author?
Those new definitions were based on male models of the “Romantic genius”, struggling with his muse. The idea of an author writing in the midst of her family, including children with all their noise and activity, as Edgeworth did regularly, became unrecognizable as “author”. The earlier feminine history of family involvement, coterie circles and collaborative efforts were seen as “unprofessional”, not serious.. We’ve also privileged paid work. (By that criterion, however, Edgeworth should have remained as well-known now as she was then, having earned over 11,000 pounds in her career, more than most authors until her friend Scott passed her by). Didactic and moral intent were also newly dismissed as authorship. Those distinctions were not a part of that era’s view of authorship, especially for children. Learnings and moral instruction were part of a child’s reading experience. It was what you did when writing for children. These authors made it easier, and they made if fun. That is part of their skill as authors.
Conclusion
Long trivialized or dismissed altogether for not fitting into new idea of what an author is, these authors deserve our attention. Their impact and influence is extensive and they should be known for it. They took their craft, their market and their audiences very seriously. We are indebted to them for the knowledge and inventiveness of their writing. Above all, we are indebted to them for their dedication to children and to the literature they gave them and bequeathed to us.