 Title page from the second edition | |
| Author | Maria Edgeworth |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | children's literature |
| Publisher | Joseph Johnson |
Publication date | 1796 |
| Media type | |
The Parent's Assistant is the first collection of children's stories by Maria Edgeworth, published by Joseph Johnson in 1796.
The first edition (Part I) had five stories: Lazy Lawrence, Tarlton, The Little Dog Trusty,The Orange Man and The False Key. Barring Out was included in the second edition of Part I published the same year. In later editions more material was added, most notably, "The Purple Jar", and a play for children, Old Poz. [1] The 1865 American edition contained the following stories: "Lazy Lawrence", "Tarlton", "The False Key", "The Birthday Present", "Simple Susan", "The Bracelets", "The Little Merchants", "Old Poz", "The Mimic", "Mademoiselle Panache", "The Basket Woman", "The White Pigeon", "The Orphans", "Waste Not, Want Not", "Forgive and Forget", "The Barring Out, or Party Spirit", and "Eton Montem". [2]
Queen Victoria was reading The Parent's Assistant in 1837, just three months before her coronation. She recalls reading "The Birthday Present" in "Miss Edgeworth's inimitable and delightful Parent's Assistant" while doing her hair. [3] The collection is also mentioned in William Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair and is mentioned in Eight Cousins also.
A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes.
The Brothers Grimm, Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were German academics who together collected and published folklore. The brothers are among the best-known storytellers of folktales, popularizing stories such as "Cinderella", "The Frog Prince", "Hansel and Gretel", "Town Musicians of Bremen", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Rapunzel", "Rumpelstiltskin", "Sleeping Beauty", and "Snow White". Their first collection of folktales, Children's and Household Tales, began publication in 1812.
Maria Edgeworth was a prolific Anglo-Irish novelist of adults' and children's literature. She was one of the first realist writers in children's literature and was a significant figure in the evolution of the novel in Europe. She held critical views on estate management, politics and education, and corresponded with some of the leading literary and economic writers, including Sir Walter Scott and David Ricardo. During the first decade of the 19th century she was one of the most widely read novelists in Britain and Ireland. Her name today most commonly associated with Castle Rackrent, her first novel in which she adopted an Irish Catholic voice to narrate the dissipation and decline of a family from her own landed Anglo-Irish class.
Catherine Greenaway was an English Victorian artist and writer, known for her children's book illustrations. She received her education in graphic design and art between 1858 and 1871 from the Finsbury School of Art, the South Kensington School of Art, the Heatherley School of Art, and the Slade School of Fine Art. She began her career designing for the burgeoning greetings card market, producing Christmas and Valentine's cards. In 1879 wood-block engraver and printer Edmund Evans printed Under the Window, an instant best-seller, which established her reputation. Her collaboration with Evans continued throughout the 1880s and 1890s.
Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter was an English biographer, writer, and radio broadcaster. He is known especially for his biographies of J. R. R. Tolkien and other members of the literary society the Inklings.
Ian Serraillier was an English novelist and poet. He retold legends from England, Greece and Rome and was best known for his children's books, especially The Silver Sword (1956), a wartime adventure story that the BBC adapted for television in 1957 and again in 1971.
Eric, or, Little by Little is a book by Frederic W. Farrar, first edition 1858. It was published by Adam & Charles Black, Edinburgh and London. The book deals with the descent into moral turpitude of a boy at a boarding school or English public school of that era.
The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's is the best known of the school stories by the late nineteenth century author Talbot Baines Reed. The stories as well as the book were written for the Boy's Own Paper and published by the Religious Tract Society, with illustrations by Gordon Browne. It was adapted into the 1921 film of the same name, and serialised for TV in four parts in 1961.
Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances (1869) is the first children's book published by author Juliana Horatia Ewing (1841–1885).
A Flat Iron for a Farthing (1872) is a book by Juliana Horatia Ewing (1842–1885) and consists of childhood reminiscences of the only child of a widowed father. It was one of the author's most popular books.
Original Stories from Real Life; with Conversations Calculated to Regulate the Affections, and Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness is the only complete work of children's literature by the 18th-century English feminist author Mary Wollstonecraft. Original Stories begins with a frame story that sketches out the education of two young girls by their maternal teacher Mrs. Mason, followed by a series of didactic tales. The book was first published by Joseph Johnson in 1788; a second, illustrated edition, with engravings by William Blake, was released in 1791 and remained in print for around a quarter of a century.
Evenings at Home, or The Juvenile Budget Opened (1792–1796) is a collection of six volumes of stories written by John Aikin and his sister Anna Laetitia Barbauld. It is an early example of children's literature. The late Victorian children's writer Mary Louisa Molesworth named it as one of the handful of books that was owned by every family in her childhood and read enthusiastically. In their introduction, the authors explain the title in these words:
Gillian Elise Avery was a British children's novelist, and a historian of childhood education and children's literature. She won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in 1972 for A Likely Lad. It was adapted for television in 1990.
Barring out is the former custom in English schools of barring a schoolmaster from the premises.
Toy books were illustrated children's books that became popular in England's Victorian era. The earliest toy books were typically paperbound, with six illustrated pages and sold for sixpence; larger and more elaborate editions became popular later in the century. In the mid-19th century picture books began to be made for children, with illustrations dominating the text rather than supplementing the text.
The Civil and Military Gazette was a daily English-language newspaper founded in 1872 in British India. It was published from Lahore, Simla and Karachi, some times simultaneously, until its closure in 1963. The archives are owned by Lahore-based businessman Humayun Naseer Shaikh and have been digitized by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's Citizens Archive of Pakistan.
Marion St John Adcock Webb was an English writer of novels and poetry for children that presaged A. A. Milne, with her character "The Littlest One".
Dean & Son was a 19th-century London publishing firm, best known for making and mass-producing moveable children's books and toy books, established around 1800. Thomas Dean founded the firm, probably in the late 1790s, bringing to it innovative lithographic printing processes. By the time his son George became a partner in 1847, the firm was the preeminent publisher of novelty children's books in London. The firm was first located on Threadneedle Street early in the century; it moved to Ludgate Hill in the middle of the century, and then to Fleet Street from 1871 to 1890. In the mid-20th century the firm published books by Enid Blyton and children's classics in the Dean's Classics series.
John Harris (1756–1846) published children's books in England from the end of the 18th century to the mid-19th century, creating innovative and popular new styles. Apprenticed to Thomas Evans he found employment for a short time with John Murray before joining John Newbery's publishing firm.
The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature is a reference work first published in 1984, with its most recent edition in 2015. The Oxford Companions is a book series providing general knowledge within a specific area, in this case, children's literature.
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