From the Dairyman's Daughter to Worrals of the WAAF

A collection of essays based on the Childrenís Books History Society study conference marking the bicentenary of the Religious Tract Society and Lutterworth Press. The book uses the history of the RTS to chart the development of childrenís literature from the evangelical tract through to the popular school story, spanning the period from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. The book details the nature and development of the tract genre both in Britain and America, before looking at the range of RTS and Lutterworth output of childrenís titles, including the movement into magazine publishing. The work studies the two great magazines for which the RTS and Lutterworth were known to generations of children, the Boyís Own Paper and the Girlís Own Paper, as well as other magazines, such as the Childís Companion. There are also chapters on popular tracts, such as the Dairymanís Daughter, and successful authors, from Hesba Stretton and Mrs Walton to W.E. Johns and Laura Ingalls Wilder. The title examines how, in order to reflect an increasingly secular age, the subject matter widened, providing more non-fiction in the periodicals as well as an increasingly broad range of fiction. It also shows how the publishing department worked within the context of a missionary society with a global reach, and how a didactically religious tone was modulated in order to present Christian values with more subtlety in an increasingly secular society. With chapters on subjects as diverse as American religious tracts, boysí school stories, secular publishing for girls and the presentation of gender roles, the book is a major contribution to publishing history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

A collection of essays analysing and celebrating the development of children's literature from the 18th to 20th centuries, with emphasis on the role played by the Religious Tract Society and the Lutterworth Press.A collection of essays based on the Children's Books History Society study conference marking the bicentenary of the Religious Tract Society and the Lutterworth Press. The book analyses the children's literature it produced, charting the development of the genre from the evangelical tract through to the popular school story, spanning the period from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. It shows how publishing worked within the context of a missionary society with a global reach. The book details the nature and development of the tract genre both in Britain and America, before looking at the range of RTS and Lutterworth output of children's titles, including its movement into magazine publishing. The work studies the two great magazines for which the RTS and Lutterworth were known to generations of children, the Boy's Own Paper and the Girl's Own Paper, as well as other magazines, such The Child's Companion. There are also chapters on popular tracts, such as The Dairyman's Daughter, and successful authors, from Hesba Stretton and Mrs Walton to W.E. Johns and Laura Ingalls Wilder. These essays explore how, in order to reflect an increasingly secular age, the subject matter widened, providing more non-fiction in its periodicals as well as an increasingly broad range of fiction, mostly secular in nature. It was also necessary for the Society to alter its didactically religious tone in order to present its Christian values with more subtlety. With chapters on subjects as diverse as American religious tracts, boy's school stories, secular publishing for girls and the presentation of gender roles, this collection is a major contribution to publishing history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Contributors include Brian Alderson, Mary Cadogan, Aileen Fyfe and Anne Thwaite.