The Early Novel for Children

This chapter discusses the emergence of the novel as a genre within children’s literature in the anglophone world, focusing on texts published from 1749 to 1821. As this chapter will outline, the early experiments in fiction for children produced from the mid eighteenth century onwards deserve critical attention for a number of reasons, not least that they laid the foundations for hugely popular genres such as the school story, the animal biography, the Robinsonade and the adventure story. The chapter outlines the extent to which key principles of Enlightenment thought shaped the early novel for children, evident in their largely secular ethos and in the expression of progressive positions on race, animal cruelty and women’s intellectual equality. The influence of the Evangelical movement as a counter to radicalism in Britain, however, is also apparent, while the extent to which Enlightenment thought underpinned an imperial ‘civilizing mission’ is evident in the generic evolution of the Robinsonade in particular.