It argues for the importance of reading to early modern childhood and of childhood to early modern reading cultures by drawing together the fields of childhood studies, early modern literature and the history of reading.
Edel Lamb is Lecturer in Renaissance Literature at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland. She previously held an Australian Research Council Fellowship at the University of Sydney and an Irish Research Council Fellowship at University College Dublin. She is the author of Performing Childhood in the Early Modern Theatre (1599-1613) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
1. Introduction - Reading Child Readers.- 2. 'A good child is one that loves his book': Literary, Religious Instruction and the Child as Reader.- 3. Books for 'childish age': Youthful Reading Cultures in Early Modern England.- 4. Reading Boyhood: The Books and Reading Practices of Early Modern Schoolboys.- 5. 'this girl hath spirit': Rewriting Girlhood Reading.- 6. 'I remember when I began to read': Remembering Childhood Reading.
“With this passionate and compelling book, Edel Lamb provides a much needed reflection on the reading experiences of early modern British children. … This book comes as a welcome advancement in the direction of historically aware studies on childhood, finally distanced from any useless moralism and open to the challenge of difference.” (Luana Salvarani, History of Education, Vol. 49 (1), January, 2020)
