“The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes” was an early book
for children that had a huge influence on the way that children were taught to
read, from its publication in 1765 until the mid 19th century.
Although its sententiousness and overbearing morality might cause hilarity
today, it was in several ways a revolutionary publication in its time.
Publication and authorship
“Little Goody Two-Shoes” was published by John Newbery
(1713-67), who can claim to be the first British publisher of books aimed
specifically at children. He had a double career, both as a publisher and a manufacturer
of patent medicines, and was not above using the former to advertise the
latter. He had a highly developed social conscience, as well as a belief that
children learned best through play.
“Little Goody Two-Shoes” is not credited to an author, which
has led to speculation that it might have been written by Oliver Goldsmith.
However, there is no clear proof of this, and the evidence would seem to point
to Newbery himself being the author.
Plot and storyline
Margery and Tommy are an orphaned brother and sister, so
poor that Margery only has one shoe. They are befriended by a gentleman who
takes Tommy away to London
and orders a pair of shoes for Margery. She is so pleased to own a whole pair
of shoes that she points them out to everyone she meets, “See, two shoes”, and
thus earns her nickname.
Margery has been living with a local clergyman, but is
forced out by the wicked local squire and has to fend for herself. She teaches
herself to read by borrowing books from the children at the local school and is
soon able to teach the children, using games and songs as her method of
instruction.
She grows up to become a schoolteacher and is a model of
enlightened teaching. When the school roof falls in, Margery rescues the
children. She is later able to offer marriage guidance to a quarrelling couple
by advising them to count to twenty before losing their tempers.
Her scientific approach to education is not universally
popular, however, and she finds herself arrested as a witch when she uses a
barometer to forecast the weather.
Despite the ills that have befallen her she never gives in
to despair, neither does she bear any grudges. Indeed, when she hears about a
plot to break into the squire’s house and murder him, she tells him about it
and saves his life, despite him being the cause of her initial poverty by
dispossessing her father and evicting her.
She eventually marries a wealthy baronet and is reunited
with her brother Tommy, who has made his own fortune overseas. She uses her
wealth to good effect, buying the estate of the squire and handing the land
back to the tenants. When she dies, she is mourned by all.
Social and political purpose
Although this is ostensibly a children’s book, there is much
more to it than that. In his introduction as “editor”, Newbery clearly writes
for an adult audience (“children of six feet high” in his words) as he points
to the evils visited on the populace by grasping landlords and the legal system
that favours the rich against the poor. This was written at a time when
“enclosures” were forcing tenant farmers off the land and removing the common
land on which the poorest rural people depended for a living. It is not
surprising that Goldsmith was thought by many to be the author, given the
strength of his anger directed at the squirarchy for this trend (as in “The
Deserted Village”).
As well as the educational purpose of the book, with methods
of teaching spelling as a game explained in great detail, Newbery introduces
other enlightened thoughts along the way. For example, at one point Margery
thinks she has seen a ghost but realises that it is only a neighbour’s dog.
Newbery uses the incident to attack the common belief in ghosts and fairies,
thus setting himself on the side of the rationalists and against the craze for fairy
stories.
On this latter point, it is notable that “Little Goody
Two-Shoes” was published in the same year as “The Castle of Otranto”, by Horace
Walpole, this being the first of the “gothic novels” that were to influence the
publishing scene for the rest of the century and into the next. It is
particularly interesting to note that one known reader of “Little Goody
Two-Shoes” was Jane Austen, whose own “Northanger Abbey” was a satirical attack
on the gothic novel. It is probable that this was Jane Austen’s first completed
full-length novel (although it was published after her death), and one can
speculate that “Little Goody Two-Shoes” was an important influence on her as a
writer.
“Little Goody Two-Shoes” is not a book that anyone would
read to their children today, for the reasons mentioned in the opening
paragraph above. Indeed, the only reason why people today might have heard of
it is because the term “Miss Goody Two-Shoes” is sometimes used to insult someone
who is prissy or prudish. We simply do not regard a person like Margery as a
model to emulate, although this was not the case in past generations. It is
however an interesting milestone in the history of children’s publishing, and
the Jane Austen connection adds an extra reason for not forgetting it
completely.
© John Welford
