Fact and Fiction
Once the notion of writing and publishing books for children became firmly established in the nineteenth century, the field knew no bounds. Science, biography, history, and literature all proved fertile ground, as children’s books reflected mainstream adu
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O
n c e the notion of writing and publishing books for children
became firmly established in the nineteenth century, the field knew no bounds. Science, biography, history, and literature all proved fertile ground, as children’s books reflected mainstream adult interests as well as childish pursuits. When addressing adult purchasers of books, publishers stressed their product’s practical and instructional value, but they also made sure to include plenty of illustrations to enhance the visual appeal of their volumes to the children who would ultimately read them. They also included movable parts and eye-catching devices, such as shaped covers and fold-outs, to animate their pages. In the realm of literature, novels written for adult readers have long been adopted by younger, less sophisticated audiences. Many versions of these novels were printed just for children, their plots condensed, their syntax simplified, and their words occasionally restricted to those of a single syllable. Even the works of Shakespeare appeared in editions edited and designed for children’s pleasure. Among the time-tested favorites were adventure stories such as Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels of 1726 and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe of 1719.The shipwrecked Crusoe’s struggles to survive on a remote island resonated so strongly with American children that industry giant McLoughlin Brothers alone printed more than eighty versions of the story. Parents who had been warned by nineteenth-century reformers about the dangerous trumpery of novels that imparted no useful information could rest assured that Robinson Crusoe would do their children no 107
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harm: educational philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau had recommended the novel during the preceding century as one that would teach children to judge things by their usefulness—a practical skill for children at the dawn of the advertising age. Also popular were richly illustrated volumes of natural history created especially for young readers. A field of sophisticated scientific inquiry during the eighteenth-century age of reason, natural history reached a non-scientific audience in the following century. Lectures by leading researchers instructed and entertained audiences of all ages in Europe and the United States. Rev. George Wood’s “sketch lectures” did much to broaden the appeal of the discipline in the 1880s, and his many books published in England influenced children’s offerings on both sides of the Atlantic. Reports on global explorations from the North Pole to the Galapagos Islands inspired children’s interest in geography, while the great world’s fairs of 1876 and 1892 brought many in direct contact with exotic cultures and wildlife. By the end of the nineteenth century, books on zoology, ornithology, botany, and marine life had entered the juvenile
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market. In addition, the centennial of the American Revolution and the
T h e A dv e n t u r e s o f
four hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s landing in the New World
C o m m o d o r e Pau l ,
awaken
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