'I had seen some numbers of "Tracts for the Times" lying on the counter in a bookseller's shop in Newport, and they had excited my curiosity, and led to inquiry; and, as my brother William's opinions had by that time become marked, he soon succeeded in indoctrinating us all with them. A very great comfort it certainly was to myself to have my ideas cleared upon subjects which had long been floating about in my brain, and worrying me almost without my knowing it. Especially it was a relief to me to find great earnestness and devotion in a system which allowed of reserve in expression, and did not make the style of conversation, which I had met with in the only definitely religious tales I had read, a necessary part of Christianity. Mrs Sherwood's "Tales" and others of a similar kind, described children as quoting texts, and talking of their feelings in an unnatural way, or what seemed to me unnatural; and I had really suffered so much at school from things said to me which jarred upon my taste that it was perfect rest to be able to talk upon religious subjects without hearing or using cant phrases'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Missing Sewell Print: Book
'The idea of connecting it ["Laneton Parsonage", by Sewell] with the Church Catechism had been originally suggested to me by Mrs Sherwood's stories on the same subject, which in my childhood had been a great source of Sunday amusement'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Missing Sewell Print: Book
'My present sojourn is the most distressing you can imagine: the weather is so bad that one cannot cross the threshold; there is not a book in the hou[se] besides "Rutledges's Sermons" and "Black's sermons" neither of which I have any relish for, and the "Juvenile Library" which, with the exception of "Jack the Gi[ant] Killer", ["]Blue Beard" and the "Wishing cap" that I read last night, does not appear to be particularly edifying...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Baillie Welsh Print: BookManuscript: Letter
'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue 10.3.41
F. E. Pollard in the Chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and signed.
[...]
3. Violet Clough read an exceedingly interesting paper on “Children’s Literature”
showing the was it has developed from the “Moral Tales” of Maria Edgeworth
published at the beginning of the 19th. Century, to the delightful tales by Beatrix
Potter & A. A. Milne which are read today. The one retrogressive step she thought
was in the binding of the books, which today seem to come to pieces almost at
once. All the mothers present agreed with this, so it is no reflection on the Clough
children in particular although it may be on the modern child in general.
4. Readings from children’s literature were then given as follows:
Labour Lost from the Rollo Books. Selected by S. A. Reynolds & read by A. B.
Dilks.
“The Fairchild Family” by Mrs. Sherwood read by Mrs. Pollard – this was
particularly gruesome.
“Little Women” by Louisa Alcott read by Mary Stansfield.
Divers examples of children[’]s poetry read by Rosamund Wallis, which included
an impromptu recitation by Howard Smith of one of Hillair[e] Belloc’s Cautionary
Tales.
“Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carrol[l] read by F. E. Pollard.
“Samuel Whiskers” by Beatrix Potter read by Muriel Stevens.
“The Sing Song of Old Man Kangaroo” a Just So Story by Rudyard Kipling, read by
Howard Smith.
“The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame read by Margaret Dilks.
“The House at Pooh Corner” by A. A. Milne, read by A. B. Dilks.
5. Bruce Dilks sang two of Fraser-Simsons settings of A. A. Milne’s Poems.
“Christopher Robin Alone in the Dark” and “Happiness”.
[Signed as a true record of the meeting by] S. A. Reynolds
April 7th / 41'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Pollard Print: Book
