John Newbery

John Newbery (born July 9, 1713 in Waltham St. Lawrence , Berkshire , † December 22, 1767 in Islington , London ) was an English publisher and bookseller . He provided new impulses for children's and youth literature and helped establish it as a permanent genre.

Cover pages from A Little Pretty Pocket Book

Life

John Newbery was born the son of a farmer. At sixteen he went to Reading , where he was an apprentice to the printer William Carnan. After his master's death in 1737, Newbery inherited part of the property and married the widow. From 1740 he began in Reading with the publication of books. In 1744, Newbery published his first children's book, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book , which encouraged children to behave well. Finally in 1745 he moved to London with his family . There he opened his own bookstore, The Bible and the Sun .

In the following years he published religious magazines, newspapers and books, especially children's books. The latter all stood out for their high-quality printing and durable paper, thus setting new standards for the genre. Although Newbery published his books anonymously, it is believed that he wrote some of them himself; in other cases he employed well-known authors.

Newbery's children's books were also novel in that they did not exclusively convey moral values, but had a certain entertainment value. However, they were probably not the first such works, as Thomas Boreman published his Gigantick Histories more than two years before Newbery's first books . In 1751, Newbery published the first children's magazine, The Lilliputian Magazine . In 1765 he published his most successful children's book, The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes , possibly written by Oliver Goldsmith .

Others

The Newbery Medal is named after John Newbery and has been awarded annually by the American Library Association for outstanding works of children's literature since 1922 .

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