[166-A] Linton, Wood Engraving in America.  Boston, 1882.

[168-A] Linton, Wood Engraving in America.  Boston, 1882.

[169-A] Linton, Wood Engraving in America.  Boston, 1882.

CHAPTER VII

1825-1840

Old story-books! old story-books! we owe you much, old friends,
Bright-coloured threads in Memory’s warp, of which Death holds the
ends. 
Who can forget?  Who can spurn the ministers of joy
That waited on the lisping girl and petticoated boy? 
Talk of your vellum, gold embossed, morocco, roan, and calf;
The blue and yellow wraps of old were prettier by half. 
ELIZA COOKE

Their works of amusement, when not laden with more religion than the
tale can hold in solution, are often admirable.
Quarterly Review, 1843

CHAPTER VII

1825-1840

American Writers and English Critics

It is customary to refer to the early writings of Washington Irving as works that marked the time when literature pure and simple developed in America.  Such writing as had hitherto attracted attention concerned itself, not with matters of the imagination, but with facts and theories of current and momentous interest.  Religion and the affairs of the separate commonwealths were uppermost in people’s minds in colonial days; political warfare and the defence of the policy of Congress absorbed attention in Revolutionary times; and later the necessity of expounding principles of government and of fostering a national feeling produced a literature of fact rather than of fancy.

Gradually all this had changed.  A new generation had grown up with more leisure for writing and more time to devote to the general culture of the public.  The English periodical with its purpose of “improving the taste, awakening the attention, and amending the heart,” had once met these requirements.  Later on these periodicals had been keenly enjoyed, but at the same time there appeared American magazines, modelled after them, but largely filled by contributions from literary Americans.  Early in the nineteenth century such publications were current in most large towns.  From the short essays and papers in these periodicals to the tales of Cooper and Irving the step, after all, was not a long one.

The children’s literature of amusement developed, after the end of the eighteenth century, in a somewhat similar way, although as usual tagging along after that of their parents.