The Child Reader and the Birth of Children's Literature

It is generally accepted that modern children's literature began in Britain, and in the mid-18th century. What is not known is why this happened. Entrepreneurs such as John Newbery pioneered new kinds of texts from the 1740s, but their ventures could not have succeeded without a receptive audience. This project investigates these consumers of the first modern children's books, asking who they were, how they used the books, and how they understood the new commodity that was being produced for them. By considering these questions, the project will enable a much fuller understanding of why children's literature emerged when, where and how it did.
Children's ownership and usage of books is extremely difficult to determine. They leave few records of their purchasing, behaviour or attitudes. Most accounts necessarily present adults' views of how children were supposed to think and behave. To get round this, several original methodologies have been developed for this project. They are based on a full survey of three of the most important collections of pre-1840 British children's books, in Toronto, Los Angeles and Princeton.
First, the inscriptions in these 5000 children's books have been fully surveyed. The names inscribed have been researched using censuses and parish registers. This has enabled some sophisticated statistical profiling of the early consumers of children's books in terms of age, gender and location, and even religion and class. The analysis reveals, for the first time, whether boys or girls owned more books (and of which types), and whether early children's literature was (as has been assumed) the preserve of the urban middle classes. Inscriptions can also indicate how many books individual children owned, and whether books were purchased, inherited, borrowed, or received as prizes or gifts (and from whom). Knowing how children acquired books is key to understanding how children's literature came to be established as a viable commercial product.
Second, the plentiful marginalia in 18th-century children's books has been surveyed. Often unconnected with the text itself, much of this is delightful, giving a unique insight into responses to, and contexts of, reading. Although almost always overlooked, even the smallest marginal marks reveal much about modes of use. Scribbled notes can show whether a book was read at home or in school, freely or under supervision, aloud or silently, learned by rote or read for fun. Inconspicuous pencil crosses, sometimes dated, can show how quickly a child completed a book (or not), and whether reading sessions were strictly regulated.
Taken together, such 'extra-textual' marks give a much more objective indication of how consumers regarded early children's books than can more traditional kinds of evidence. Diaries or memoirs, for instance, are scarce and unreliable. This project will consider them alongside the new data, plus other textual and pictorial depictions of children reading. By comparing representations of children's reading as it was supposed to be with the more 'forensic' evidence of children's actual book use, the project will establish whether children's and adults' ideas of the purposes and proprieties of literature concurred or conflicted.
In pioneering these new methodologies this project will make a significant contribution to the emerging field of book history. It will lay the foundations for the first in-depth study of the birth of children's literature. It will also provide a wonderful insight into the lives of 18th-century children, bringing to light their unguarded comments and absent-minded doodles. We will also be able to see how independent children were in the running of their lives. Did they select and purchase their books, and use them in the ways that they, not their parents or teachers, wished? In other words, even once children's literature had begun,did children really have a literature of their own?