The Victorian Era

Who Wrote the First Victorian Children's Book?

Article · Literature & Theatre · The Victorian Era, 1837–1901

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The question of who wrote the first Victorian children’s book is complicated, because the answer depends on what we mean by Victorian and what we mean by children’s book. If we mean the first children’s book published during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837 to 1901), the answer is complicated by the fact that the early years of the reign saw the publication of several important children’s books. If we mean the first children’s book that defined the Victorian children’s book as a distinct form, the answer is often given as The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley (1863) or Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865), though earlier books such as Catherine Sinclair’s Holiday House (1839) also have strong claims. The history of the first Victorian children’s book is examined in Children’s Literature in the Victorian Era. The context of the period is set out in Victorian Literature, Theatre, and the Written Word.

The Origins of the Children’s Book

The Victorian children’s book had its origins in the children’s literature of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, which consisted largely of chapbooks, hornbooks, alphabets, catechisms, religious tracts, moral and cautionary tales, fairy tales, and nursery rhymes. The most important figures of that earlier tradition included the London publishers John Newbery, who issued A Little Pretty Pocket-Book (1744) and The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes (1765), and Thomas Boreman; the moral and educational writers Sarah Trimmer, the author of Fabulous Histories (1786), Hannah More, Maria Edgeworth, the author of The Parent’s Assistant (1796), and Mrs Sherwood, the author of The History of the Fairchild Family (1818 to 1847); Anna Laetitia Barbauld, the author of Lessons for Children (1778 to 1779) and Hymns in Prose for Children (1781); William Blake, whose Songs of Innocence (1789) addressed childhood with visionary power; and Charles and Mary Lamb, the authors of Tales from Shakespeare (1807).

The Children’s Books of the Early Victorian Period

The 1840s and 1850s saw the publication of a number of important children’s books that laid the foundations of the Victorian children’s book. Catherine Sinclair’s Holiday House (1839) broke with the moral tale by presenting mischievous, lively children with sympathy; Edward Lear’s A Book of Nonsense (1846) established nonsense verse as a children’s form; Frederick Marryat’s The Children of the New Forest (1847) founded the Victorian children’s historical adventure; and John Ruskin’s fairy tale The King of the Golden River (1851) and William Makepeace Thackeray’s The Rose and the Ring (1855) showed that serious writers could write fantasy for children. These books prepared the way for the flowering of the 1860s.

The Major Children’s Authors of the Victorian Period

The Victorian children’s book was produced by a number of major authors, including Charles Kingsley (1819 to 1875), the author of The Water-Babies (1863); Lewis Carroll (1832 to 1898), the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865); George MacDonald (1824 to 1905), the author of At the Back of the North Wind (1871), The Princess and the Goblin (1872), and The Princess and Curdie (1883); Mrs Molesworth (1839 to 1921), the author of The Cuckoo Clock (1877) and The Tapestry Room (1879); E. Nesbit (1858 to 1924), the author of The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899) and Five Children and It (1902); Beatrix Potter (1866 to 1943), the author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902); Kenneth Grahame (1859 to 1932), the author of The Wind in the Willows (1908); and J. M. Barrie (1860 to 1937), the author of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906) and Peter and Wendy (1911).

The Significance of the Victorian Children’s Book

The Victorian children’s book was a major literary form of the period, and it was the medium in which the leading children’s authors explored themes of childhood, innocence, education, morality, imagination, and family. It transformed children’s reading from instruction into delight, and it laid the foundations of modern children’s literature, from the fantasy novel to the picture book, whose twentieth-century masters worked in a tradition the Victorians created.

Conclusion

The question of who wrote the first Victorian children’s book is complicated, and the answer depends on what we mean by Victorian and what we mean by children’s book. The strongest candidates for the title of first Victorian children’s author include Catherine Sinclair, Edward Lear, Charles Kingsley, and Lewis Carroll. The children’s book that most clearly established the Victorian children’s book as a distinct form was probably The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley (1863), and the children’s book that most clearly established it as a serious literary form was probably Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865). The history of the first Victorian children’s book is examined in Children’s Literature in the Victorian Era and in Victorian Literature, Theatre, and the Written Word.