The eighteenth-century texts featured in this anthology were among the first to be written and published expressly for English speaking children. Under the widely acknowledged influence of John Locke's and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's educational philosophies, children's literature emerged as a fundamental genre to reform society through the construction of enlightened, liberal, rational and virtuous citizens, both male and female. John Newbery, Sarah Fielding, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Thomas Day, Dorothy Kilner, Sarah Trimmer, and Maria Edgeworth fused instruction with amusement in their stories, and created a fascinating catalog aimed at inculcating the new bourgeois values of the rising middle classes, and at fostering new ethical, economic, social, cultural and political values through seemingly innocent and innocuous writing.

Los textos del siglo XVIII reunidos en esta antología tienen el privilegio de encontrarse entre los primeros en ser escritos y publicados expresamente para niños de habla inglesa. Bajo la reconocida influencia de las filosofías educativas de John Locke y Jean-Jacques Rousseau, la literatura infantil emergió como un género fundamental para reformar la sociedad a través de la construcción de ciudadanos, hombres y mujeres, ilustrados, liberales, racionales y virtuosos. John Newbery, Sarah Fielding, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Thomas Day, Dorothy Kilner, Sarah Trimmer, y Maria Edgeworth fusionaron en sus historias la educación y la diversión, y crearon un fascinante catálogo con el objetivo de inculcar los nuevos valores burgueses de las crecientes clases medias, así como el de fomentar estos principios éticos, económicos, sociales, culturales y políticos a través de unos escritos en apariencia inocentes e inocuos.

- Introduction, Carme Manuel - 'A Little Pretty Pocket-Book', John Newbery (1744) - From 'The Governess; or, Little Female Academy', Sarah Fielding (1749) - 'Goody Two-Shoes', Anonymous (1765) - From 'Lessons for Children', Anna Laetitia Barbould (1778-1779) - From 'The History of Sandford and Merton', Thomas Day (1783) - 'The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse', Dorothy Kilner (1784) - From 'Fabulous Histories Designed for the Instruction of Children', Sarah Trimmer (1786) - From 'The Parent's Assistant or Stories for Children', Maria Edgeworth (1796)