Irish Children's Fiction, 1727-1820 (Critical Essay‪)‬

Combining contemporary critical approaches to children's literature and early Irish fiction, this essay assesses the contribution made by Irish writers to the development of English-language fiction for young readers. The way in which stories by Jonathan Swift and Henry Brooke were adapted for such readers highlights the continuum between children's and other forms of literature. The analysis of stories by James Delap, John Carey, Lady Mount Cashell and Alicia Le Fanu, meanwhile, suggests that it is time to re-examine the ways in which we think about, and teach, both children's literature and Irish writing of the long eighteenth century. **********