Readings in Fiction : History of Children's Literature to 1837 - ENG 360 Resource Guide

Encyclopedia entry from Britannica

An article from The Atlantic published in January 1888

We can trace the origin of books designed specifically for children roughly to the second half of the seventeenth century, when numerous works on the need for "Youthful Piety" were published, generally bound in dark brown or black leather to convey an added authority and sternness. These books, modelled after John Foxe's Acts And Monuments (commonly known even in Elizabethan times as "The Book of Martyrs"), recorded in endless procession the pious lives—and even more pious deaths—of young children.