"I Hope You Grow Up Gentle and Good": Transatlantic Literary Influences

Trimmer, Sarah. The Story of the Robins: Designed to Teach Children the Proper Treatment of Animals. 1786. London: Frederick Warne, 1873. [Child PZ5 no.2039]

Eighteenth-century children’s author Sarah Trimmer (1741–1810) was an active education reformer who founded numerous Sunday schools and charity schools. Trimmer also wrote textbooks and manuals for women interested in starting their own schools. The Story of the Robins was first published in 1786 as Fabulous Histories. It quickly became an important work for children’s literary education; indeed, it played a key role in shaping the genre of Victorian animal stories. Trimmer believed stories for children should impart a clear moral to their young readers, so many of her animal characters are written in service of this lesson. Indeed, the collection’s subtitle clearly states its intention is “to teach children the proper treatment of animals.” In The Story of the Robins, animals speak and live parallel lives to their human counterparts, with both learning to embrace lives of virtue and goodness. Still, such moral tales are informed by a firm hierarchy, with humans above but responsible for animals. Learning this hierarchy (and caring for animals) is essential for the child’s passage into adulthood.

Aikin, John, and Anna Laetitia Barbauld. Evenings at Home; or The Juvenile Budget Opened: Consisting of a Variety of Miscellaneous Pieces for the Instruction and Amusement of Young Persons. 1796. London: J. F. Dove, 18--. [PR4001 .A5 E9 18--]

Evenings at Home; or The Juvenile Budget Opened (1792–1796) is a series of stories by John Aikin (1747–1842) and his sister Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743–1825). Originally published in six volumes, the stories were immensely popular and translated into most European languages. As with much eighteenth-century children’s literature, many of the stories involve animals, such as “On the Martin,” “The Kid,” and “What Animals are Made For.” “History of a Cat” is an early example of feline autobiography, a genre much less popular than canine autobiography due to readers’ associations of cats with cunning and deceit. Cats are also traditionally associated with femininity, as in the case of this “autobiography.” The story’s illustration shows a young girl with a kitten in her arms and an adult cat at her feet. The caption reads, “‘My little mistress took possession of me.’”

Edgeworth, Maria. The Parent’s Assistant, or Stories for Children. 1796. New York: C. S. Francis, 1854. [PR4644 .P28 1854]

Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849) was an Anglo-Irish author of adults’ and children’s literature. One of the first realist writers of children’s fiction, her work expressed critical views on education and offered guidance on proper child-rearing. Edgeworth’s first collection of children’s stories, The Parent’s Assistant (1796), conveys its purpose through its title; parents should read the stories to their children to inculcate them with a sense of moral responsibility. In Edgeworth’s “Preface, Addressed to Parents,” she emphasizes the educational significance of writing books for children: “those only, who know with what ease and rapidity the early associations of ideas are formed, on which the future taste, character and happiness depend, can feel the dangers and difficulties of such an undertaking.” The illustration above this preface depicts a young girl patiently feeding two rabbits, suggesting the stories in the collection have informed her moral development.

Although the collection initially comprised just five texts, later editions added more material, including Edgeworth’s most famous children’s story, “The Purple Jar.” This 1854 American edition also contains several stories featuring animals, such as “The White Pigeon.” The handwritten inscription reveals it was a gift given “with affection” from a mother to her “dear daughter,” suggesting Edgeworth’s intention for the book was fulfilled; a parent gave their child a copy to “assist” with that child’s upbringing. However, this inscription also exemplifies the nineteenth-century transference of knowledge—especially moral knowledge—between women and girls, whose compassion for animals was more socially acceptable (and expected) than that of their male counterparts.”

Edgeworth, Maria, and Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Practical Education. 2 vols. London: J. Johnson, 1798. [LB1025 .E128]

Practical Education (1798) is a two-volume treatise on children’s education by Maria Edgeworth and her father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744–1817). Combining the ideas of such philosophers and writers as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William Godwin, and Catharine Macaulay, the Edgeworths’ comprehensive theory of education is based on the premise that early childhood experiences are fundamental to one’s development into a rational and benevolent adult. They encourage experiential learning but acknowledge that “during childhood, there occur but few opportunities of exerting the virtues which are recommended in books, such as humanity, and generosity.” Children’s humanity cannot, they argue, “properly be said to be exercised upon animals” because “even when they are enthusiastically fond of them ... they are apt to insist upon doing animals good against their will.” Thus, “until young people have fixed habits of benevolence ... it is not prudent to trust them with the care or protection of animals.” Further, the Edgeworths urge parents not to teach their children “to confine their benevolence to those animals which are thought beautiful.” Children learn such “absurd antipathies,” they suggest, from their parents’ “foolish exclamations” of “fear and disgust ... at the sight of certain unfortunate animals” (282–283). Therefore, the most effective method for raising ethical children is modelling kindness toward all animals regardless of species.

Memoirs of Dick, the Little Poney, Supposed to be written by himself; and Published for the Instruction and Amusement of Good Boys and Girls. London: J. Walker, 1800. [Child PZ5 no. 2260]

Memoirs of Dick, The Little Poney (1800) is one of the earliest horse autobiographies, coming over seventy-five years before Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty. However, it does not pretend to be the only such animal story. Indeed, the introduction distinguishes its story from that of an “identical horse of knowledge, which some years ago instructed or amused so many of the human race” (vii). As with other animal stories of the period, Dick is used as a didactic tool for children’s education, but often in that service, his humour comes through.

Born in an idyllic rural setting, Dick is soon stolen and sold into service. Throughout his subsequent jobs, we see Dick learn moral lessons about being a good pony—lessons about merit, not superficial beauty, etc. But such stories also expose Dick’s character flaws or problems that necessitate these lessons. His primary problem is pride. His vanity leads him, on one account, to throw his rude mistress into a ditch (142). Yet one also gets, through such incidents, an implicitly critical commentary on polite society and its shortcomings. We see how Dick is the one who must learn to temper his ego, while his mistress is allowed to continue gossiping and meddling irresponsibly in others’ lives.

Each chapter ends with some moral in which Dick recounts his lesson about what is right and wrong. Throughout the autobiography, there are multiple references to animal cruelty, specifically hunting and killing animals for sport (Dick remarks on the gross inequity of the fox chase, for example).

The Author of Dick the Little Poney. The Dog of Knowledge; or, Memoirs of Bob, the Spotted Terrier: Supposed to be written by Himself. London: Tabart, 1809. [Child PZ5 no. 2259]

The Dog of Knowledge (1809) is by the same anonymous author as Memoirs of Dick, The Little Poney. It is among the earliest examples of dog autobiographies, a genre Marshall Saunders later made famous with Beautiful Joe. The Dog of Knowledge is told from the point of view of a spotted terrier named Bob. The story recounts Bob’s travels and adventures, often using the animal to expose the corrupt manners of society. At one point, for example, Bob travels (with his owner) to Jamaica, where he witnesses the horror of slavery. Later, when he returns to London, he spends much time recounting the petty machinations of society and is especially critical of the coquette into whose hands he has fallen.    

This politically-tinged children’s story was not well-received by all. For example, in reviewing the story for her Guardian of Education (1806), Sarah Trimmer complained that the book was too satirical. She was likely thinking of such moments as when, toward the end of the novel, Bob recounts stories told by his beloved master. One story set in Revolutionary France is notable for its anti-Jabonism (Robespierre is described as “the iron scourge of a tyrant” (164). Bob’s master, “Monsieur R,” is imprisoned and eventually executed by the revolutionaries. This kind of adult content makes this animal story unusual for its genre, which typically sticks to didactic lessons and avoids such contemporary political issues. Perhaps this is why Trimmer compared the book to a novel—fiction read by adult women prone to “romantic representations”: “If we had not learnt from the dedication, and from the prefactory advertisement, that this Book was written for young people, we should have ranked it among Novels.”

Traill, Catherine Parr Strickland. Little Downy; or, The History of a Field-Mouse: A Moral Tale. London: A. K. Newman, 1822. [lp PS8439 .R35 L5 1822]

Little Downy (1822) by Canadian author Catherine Parr Traill (1802–1899) is a moral tale told in the form of a conversation-style story to a boy named Alfred by his mother, Mrs Clifford. The story begins when Alfred discovers a mouse has gotten into the kitchen cupboard and eaten his cookie. Overcome with anger, Alfred wishes the mouse dead. His mother overhears this wish for vengeance and embarks upon this moral talk to teach her child a more profound sense of compassion for and responsibility toward animals.

The ensuing story recounts Downy’s life, beginning with her days as a barn mouse spoiled by a steady grain supply. Eventually, the farmer’s dogs raid the barn and kill most of the mice, including Downy’s family. Downy escapes and learns to live a virtuous life of industry as a field mouse. She undergoes a few moral tests and falls in love with a handsome—but not hardworking—mouse named Silket. Together they raise a baby mouse, Velvet, but Downy is soon left a single parent after Silket dies (a consequence of vanity). Mother and child try to survive through hard work, but eventually, desperation leads young Velvet to trespass into the humans’ house, where she steals a cookie and, per young Albert’s wish, is ultimately trapped and killed for her crimes.  

As his mother recounts these final scenes, our young interlocutor, Albert, cries out in new sympathy for the young mouse, rescinding his wish for vengeance. At this point, the mother-narrator, Mrs Clifford, unveils the moral of her story. She tells her son that the mouse must indeed be killed, but not for reasons like anger; instead, it is the boy’s duty as a human to care for animals, even if that means sometimes humanely killing them: “we should do it with as much humanity as we can,” his mother says, “and never inflict on them unnecessary pain.” In this story, then, the animal is a tool for the child’s lesson in compassion for—as well as authority over—the non-human animal.

Mamma’s Stories about Animals. London: Darton, 1853. [Child PZ5 no.1355]

These “mama’s stories,” to be shared by parent and child, were very popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They were written in the tradition of Maria Edgeworth’s theory of education for children, using literature as a gentle way to impart moral education. In Mamma’s Stories about Animals (1853), moral education extends to care and responsibility for animals. It is important to note that this human-animal relationship is hierarchical and that the child’s lesson (or maturation) is learning about this position of responsibility over nature.

Interestingly, this collection includes stories on a wide range of animals, from horses and pigs to tigers and elephants. The general approach in each entry is a mix of natural and cultural descriptions, often digressing into Eurocentric or racist comparisons. For example, the tiger’s ferocity (or badness) is claimed to be the result of increasing urbanization.

The book does reflect on the cruelty and mistreatment of animals within the English nation—e.g., both chapters on horses and donkeys talk about how such animals are worked to exhaustion in the interests of profit. It also idealizes some animals—e.g., the chapter on dogs picks the St Bernard as an example of a noble animal willing to sacrifice itself for humans. As suggested by this latter example, this book also takes humans’ authority over animals for granted—the chapter on the elephant even suggests that the animal is happy to be tamed. At the same time, however, these stories are also meant to impart a sense of responsibility in the young reader—a responsibility or moral duty implicit in this position of power. There are also chapters, like the one on pigs, that suggest animals have emotional complexity and are even capable of forming sympathetic bonds with each other; yet this chapter (like many others) ends with a detached summary of the various material uses for the pig (food, work, etc.).

Sewell, Anna. Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions, the Autobiography of a Horse. 1877. American Humane Education Society, 1904. [Child PZ5 no. 2262]

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell (1820–1878) was first published in 1877 by the British publishing company Jarrold & Sons. It was an instant bestseller, going through thirty-five reprintings, and was subsequently republished by the American Humane Society, which marketed it as “The Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the Horse.” The edition we have on display here is the first printing by the American Humane Education Society. Written as a first-person autobiography, the novel’s main events recount Beauty’s life as he passes through the hands of various owners. He is made to perform a series of different jobs, each progressively worse than the last. Detailed in its realistic account of these working conditions, Beauty’s story exposes the cruelty suffered by many working horses during the Victorian period. The number of such working horses multiplied dramatically by the end of the century to accommodate the growing numbers of people who now lived and worked in the cities. Sewell’s novel singles out for such critique the pervasive use of the bearing reign, a type of harness used to prevent a horse from lowering its head below a fixed point; the reins connected to a bit in the horse’s mouth and caused significant discomfort, if not pain, and the restriction in movement often resulted in accidents and injury.

By speaking from the horse’s point of view, Sewell’s “autobiography” can voice complaints against such cruelties inflicted for no reason other than fashion (the horse is a symbol of class status and ambition). At the same time, the novel uses the animal’s perspective to challenge those Victorians who thought of working animals as akin to machines, without consciousness and affective feelings (the influence of such ideas can be seen in language, measuring engine strength in “horsepower,” for example). The novel also links such mechanistic treatment of animals to the cruel pressures of modern global capitalism. Seedy Sam is an example of a poorer city cabman who cites the high costs of business (like cab fees) as the reason why he must overwork his horses: “if the horses don’t work, we must starve, and I and my children have known what that is before now” (24).

Readers were deeply upset by Sewell’s frank depiction of animal abuse (toward the end of the novel, Beauty collapses in the street from exhaustion). The subsequent outcry helped pass new legislation banning the bearing rein and altering the cab tax fees. Copies of the book were distributed to cab and stable workers, and the novel was eventually distributed in schools to promote kindness toward animals among children. The novel’s emphasis on this moral is not unusual; as seen above (in Dick, The Little Poney and others), these animal stories can trace their origins to the late eighteenth century. These earlier stories also taught children their duty of kindness and care for nature, using the animal as a pedagogical tool. Sewell’s novel likewise encourages human compassion and care for the animal (in the tradition of Trimmer and Edgeworth); however, Sewell’s animal autobiography is the first with a notably “sentimental-style” hero. In sentimental fiction, the protagonist is often a “hero of good and noble heart” unaltered by their environment. They remain a moral compass for the reader, despite (and shining a light upon) the corruption around them. Sewell’s representation of the animal as a sentient being who is capable of feeling—even noble suffering and the implicit consciousness this implies—is thus quite different from the stories of Trimmer and Edgeworth, who still treated the animal as an (often flawed) character-“tools” for the child’s lesson. At the same time, by showing the animal’s capacity for feeling, Sewell gave readers a new way to look at, or evaluate, their modern (working) relationships with animals. As Kristen Guest explains, “[i]n Black Beauty, Sewell uses the language of sentiment to distinguish the logic of what is ‘right’ from the emphasis of human social hierarchy on economic systems” (“Introduction” to the Broadview edition, 21). 

Emanuel, Walter. A Dog Day; or, The Angel in the House. Illustrated by Cecil Aldin. William Heinemann, 1902. [Child PZ5 no. 2261]

This picture book recounts a dog’s day, as retold by the “author” himself. The dog in question is a small terrier-type dog who causes mischief over the course of a day. He rolls in mud and leaves dirty paw prints on the furniture, for example, and later fantasizes about eating the family’s pet bird but instead settles on chewing up some coal (making another mess). Over the day, our dog-narrator has run-ins with the many cats living in the house and (successfully) begs for table scraps from his favourite human, Miss Brown. Clearly written for both children and adults, the story uses humour to impart its “lesson”: that for all his silliness and follies, the dog is a good animal who will reward his family with love and loyalty. Indeed, despite all of his mischief, our dog-narrator is also a cherished house pet who even (accidentally) saves his family from being robbed—he yelps and bites the robber’s leg after the latter steps on his tail. And after all of his shenanigans, our dog-hero is still humble as he returns to his kennel and pronounces, “Lights out. Thus ends another dernd dull day.”