The Child Reader and the Birth of Children's Literature

人们普遍认为现代儿童文学始于英国，并在世纪中期。不知道的是为什么会发生这种情况。18世纪40年代，约翰·纽伯里（John Newbery）等企业家开创了新的文本，但如果没有接受的读者，他们的冒险就不可能成功。这个项目调查了第一批现代儿童书籍的消费者，询问他们是谁，他们如何使用这些书籍，以及他们如何理解为他们生产的新商品。通过对这些问题的思考，该项目将使人们更全面地了解儿童文学为什么会在何时、何地以及如何出现。他们几乎没有留下购买记录、行为或态度。大多数叙述必然呈现出成年人对儿童应该如何思考和行为的看法。为了解决这个问题，已经为这个项目开发了几种原始方法。他们是基于对多伦多、洛杉矶和普林斯顿三个最重要的1840年前英国儿童书籍收藏的全面调查。已经使用人口普查和教区登记册对所刻的名字进行了研究。这使得一些复杂的统计分析儿童书籍的早期消费者的年龄，性别和位置，甚至宗教和阶级。该分析首次揭示了男孩还是女孩拥有更多的书籍（以及哪些类型），以及早期儿童文学是否（如人们所认为的那样）是城市中产阶级的专利。inclusion还可以表示每个孩子拥有多少本书，以及书籍是否被购买，继承，借用或作为奖品或礼物收到（以及从谁那里）。了解儿童如何获得书籍是理解儿童文学如何被确立为一种可行的商业产品的关键。第二，对18世纪儿童书籍中丰富的旁注进行了调查。通常与文本本身无关，其中大部分是令人愉快的，给出了一个独特的洞察反应，和上下文的阅读。尽管几乎总是被忽视，但即使是最小的边缘标记也能揭示出许多使用模式。潦草的笔记可以显示一本书是在家里还是在学校读的，自由还是在监督下读的，大声还是无声，死记硬背还是为了好玩而读。不显眼的铅笔十字架（有时标注日期）可以显示出一个孩子完成一本书的速度有多快（或没有），以及阅读环节是否受到严格监管。综合来看，这种“文本外”的标记比传统的证据更能客观地反映消费者对早期儿童读物的看法。例如，日记或回忆录既稀少又不可靠。这个项目将把它们与新的数据一起考虑，加上儿童阅读的其他文本和图片说明。通过比较儿童阅读的表象与儿童实际使用书籍的更多“法医”证据，该项目将确定儿童和成人对文学目的和文学规范的看法是一致还是冲突。在开创这些新方法的过程中，该项目将对书籍史的新兴领域做出重大贡献。这将为第一次深入研究儿童文学的诞生奠定基础。它还将提供一个精彩的洞察18世纪儿童的生活，揭示他们不设防的评论和心不在焉的涂鸦。我们也将能够看到孩子们在生活中的独立性。他们有没有选择和购买他们的书，并以他们自己而不是他们的父母或老师希望的方式使用它们？换句话说，即使儿童文学已经开始，儿童真的有自己的文学吗？

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?