ENG457F: Download tasks for 28th September (‘Instruction with delight’)

For class on the 28th of September, you will need to download and read several things! This sheet gives you the instructions for how to do this.

Primary sources

The innovative childrens’ publishers of the 1740s were Thomas Boreman, John Newbery, and Mary Cooper. Demers has excerpts from Boreman and Newbery, but not from Cooper. I want you to have a look at one of her productions online, the second (1743) edition of The child’s new play-thing. It is in Eighteenth-Century Collections Online (ECCO), a huge collection of digitized C18th books.

  1. Go to the U of T library catalogue:

http://www.library.utoronto.ca

  1. Do the ‘Quick title search’ at the top of the page, choosing all e-resources.
  2. Type ECCO into the box.
  3. You’ll be presented with one hit: Eighteenth Century Collection Online. Choose it.
  4. The Basic search is where you’ll end up. For the search type, choose title.
  5. Type in Child’s new play-thing
  6. You’ll be presented with one hit. Choose its e-Table of Contents.
  7. Print them out and bring that to class.
  8. Browse the book and make some observations.
  9. Then do a title search for Little Pretty Pocket-book, Newbery’s book. What’s the earliest edition that ECCO happens to have?
  10. Look at the ‘Back matter’: the list of books printed for and sold by Newbery. Make some observations to bring to class.

Secondary sources

You’ll also be reading two very recent articles about children’s reading in this period: They’re both from the same journal, History of Education. U of T subscribes to it online.

Elspeth Jajdelska, “Income, ideology and childhood reading in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.” History of Education (January 2004), vol. 33, no. 1: 55-73.

Evelyn Arizpe and Morag Styles, “’Love to learn your book’: children’s experiences of  text in the eighteenth century.” History of Education (May 2004), vol. 33, no. 3: 337-352.

Getting an online article:

  1. Go to the U of T library catalogue:
  2. Do the ‘Quick title search’ at the top of the page, choosing e-journals.
  3. Type History of Education into the box.
  4. You’ll get several hits: choose History of Education.
  5. You’ll get a list of recent volumes and issues of that journal: you want 33:1 and 33:3. Find the articles and read them!