at there might be something in the family novel expressly
for children, Richardson sometimes stepped aside from the main narrative
to tell them a moral tale."[80-A]

Mr. Cross gives an example of this which, shorn of its decoration, was
the tale of two little boys and two little girls, who never told fibs,
who were never rude and noisy, mischievous or quarrelsome; who always
said their prayers when going to bed, and therefore became fine ladies
and gentlemen.

To make the tales less difficult for amiable children to read, an
abridgment of their contents was undertaken; and Goldsmith is said to
have done much of the "cutting" in "Pamela," "Clarissa Harlowe," "Sir
Charles Grandison," and others. These books were included in the lists
of those sent to America for juvenile reading. In Boston, Cox and Berry
inserted in the "Boston Gazette and Country Journal" a notice that they
had the "following little Books for all good Boys and Girls:

The Brother's Gift, or the Naughty Girl Reformed.
The Sister's Gift, or the Naughty Boy Reformed.
The Hobby Horse, or Christmas Companion.
The Cries of London as Exhibited in the Streets.
The Puzzling Cap.
The History of Tom Jones.
The History of Joseph Andrews. Abridg'd from the works of H. Fielding
The History of Pamela. abridg'd from the works of Samuel
Richardson, Esq.
The History of Grandison.
The History of Clarissa."

Up to this time the story has been rather of the books read by the
Puritan and Quaker population of the colonies. There had arisen during
the first half of the eighteenth century, however, a merchant class
which owed its prosperity to its own ability. Such men sought for their
families the material results of wealth which only a place like Boston
could bestow. Many children, therefore, were sent to this town to
acquire suitable education in books, accomplishments, and deportment. A
highly interesting record of a child of well-to-do parents has been left
by Anna Green Winslow, who came to Boston to stay with an aunt for the
winters of 1771 and 1772. Her diary gives delightful glimpses of
children's tea-parties, fashions, and schools, all put down with a
childish disregard of importance or connection. It is in these jottings
of daily occurrences that proof is found that so young a girl read,
quite as a matter of course, the abridged works of Fielding and
Richardson.

On January 1, 1772, she wrote in her diary, "a Happy