This rare work should be of interest to numerous academic departments and individuals engaged in childhood studies and the history of children's literature. Sarah Trimmer was a prolific and highly important writer of books, including many for children, and was hugely influential in her day. Her famous periodical "The Guardian of Education" was issued monthly, then quarterly, from 1802 to 1806 and in it she attempted to survey the entire genre of children's literature from its beginnings to her current time. She criticized many works for inspiring profanity, irreligion and democratic ideas, but she did recommend some books, including a few novels and short stories. Scholars of 18th and early 19th-century children's literature find that she provides an enormously useful insight into contemporary attitudes and her opinions, however prejudiced, form a springboard from which they can launch their own analyses. The five volumes each contain about 500 pages, and their contents vary from "Extracts from Memoirs", "Extracts from Sermons" and "Systems of Education Examined" to "Observations of the Changes which have taken place in Books for Children and Young Persons" and "A Practical Essay on Christian Education". Reviews of new children's books are included, mostly by Trimmer herself, but sometimes by other writers with similar views to her own.
