SOURCE: Pedersen, Susan. “Hannah More Meets Simple Simon: Tracts, Chapbooks, and Popular Culture in Late Eighteenth-Century England.” Journal of British Studies 25, no. 1 (January 1986): 84-113.

In the following essay, Pedersen contends that More was attempting to counter the preponderance of unsuitable reading material for the poor through her tract writing, rather than trying to protect the prevailing social and political orders from possible revolution, as is often claimed by critics.

During the winter of scarcity of 1794, Hannah More wrote “a few moral stories,” drew up a plan for publication and distribution, and sent the package around to her evangelical and bluestocking friends.¹ Their response was enthusiastic; even Horace Walpole abandoned his usual teasing to write back, “I will never more complain of your silence; for I am perfectly convinced that you have no idle, no unemployed moments. Your indefatigable benevolence is incessantly occupied in good works; and your head...