Female Writers and Their Didactic Novels in the Eighteenth Century: The Early Days of British Children’s Literature

This study explored the social and cultural history of British children’s literature during the eighteenth century, particularly emphasising female writers and their moral novels. Sarah Fielding's The Governess (1749) established the first novel written specifically for girls, and the second half of the eighteenth century witnessed the rise of pedagogical literature for children. This paper divided women writers in those days into two groups: Rational Moralists and Sunday School Moralists, while trying to comment on the development of British children’s literature in the eighteenth century, which was overwhelmingly moral and religious. However, certain female writers such as Hannah More strived to succeed in writing something interesting to child readers’ eyes, whose didactic stories surely played a significant role in shaping the early days of children's literature in Britain.