ABSTRACT
The first books specifically intended for children produced in the USA were largely devoted to the teaching of proper morals. Catechisms that pointed out duties and prepared the young for a proper death, they have been described by one historian as published in the ‘gloomy tradition of the Puritans’. Some publishers managed to lighten their juvenile offerings with titles such as John Newbery's Goody Two-Shoes obtained from England, but as copyright was virtually non-existent they were almost entirely pirated editions. Not until early in the nineteenth century did a broader-based literature for children begin to develop with the publication of Peter Parley's Tales of America in 1827. Written by Samuel G.Goodrich, the many Peter Parley books that followed told adventurous tales about figures in American history, selling a total of seven million copies by the time of the Civil War in 1860.
