University of Strathclyde

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English Studies
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Children's Books Before c.1700

Back to More Children's Books

Most of the following books were not written specifically for children; these are books read by children before the advent of children's literature.

The History of Reynard the Fox: first translated by William Caxton in 1481.Not in library.

Aesop’s Fables: first translated by Caxton, in 1484; adapted for children by William Godwin in Fables Ancient and Modern (1805). There are a number of modern editions in Jordanhill library; in the Main library there's a modern edition of William Caxton's original illustrated edition (edited by Bamber and Christina Gascoigne).

Plutarch’s Lives was considered as suitable reading for children (originally in a translation by Thomas North, 1579). Main library.

Children had access to stories such as ‘Jack the Giant Killer’, ‘Robin Hood’, and so on in popular chapbooks (cheap pamphlets sold by peddlers or chapmen from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century).

'Children in the Wood' (or 'Babes in the Wood'): popular ballad about children abandoned in a wood; in print in 1593; available in chapbook form throughout the 17th and 18th centuries; included in Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) (Main library); many editions for children were published in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

John Amos Comenius, Orbis Pictus Sensualium (1657), illustrated book translated as The World of Sensible Things (1658).

Thomas White, A Little Book for Little Children (1671?) – a Puritan work that recommends that children should read theological works! Not in library.

The Bible was considered suitable reading for children.

John Foxe, Book of Martyrs (C16); a history of martyrs persecuted by the Catholic Church and by tyrannical monarchs – a monumental illustrated book considered suitable for children! Victorian edition in Main library.

James Janeway, A Token for Children (1671/1672) – the lives of thirteen child martyrs which Janeway presents in order 'to awaken his readers' hearts, to bring them to a sense of their total depravity, and thus to the 'early piety' which was the supreme aim of the responsible Calvinist preacher or parent' (Children’s Literature, p.21). Not in library.

John Bunyan's The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) – a Puritan classic written for adults but which became something of a children's classic, especially in the nineteenth century (see its role in Little Women). Various editions in Main library.

John Bunyan's A Book for Boys and Girls (1686); a book of verses for children, later entitled Divine Emblems. Not in library.

John Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693): one of the most important books in the history of education; it had a profound effect in challenging the Puritan model of the child in the eighteenth century. In the class I will be referring to the following edition: John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, edited by John W. and Jean S. Yolton (OUP, 2000). In Main library.

For further information about the Children's Literature class, please contact Dr Tom Furniss at t.furniss@strath.ac.uk

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