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Little Goody Two-Shoes

An early children's book

By John WelfordPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
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“The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes” was an early book for children that had a huge influence on the way that children were taught to read, from its publication in 1765 until the mid 19th century. Although its sententiousness and overbearing morality might cause hilarity today, it was in several ways a revolutionary publication in its time.

Publication and authorship

“Little Goody Two-Shoes” was published by John Newbery (1713-67), who can claim to be the first British publisher of books aimed specifically at children. He had a double career, both as a publisher and a manufacturer of patent medicines, and was not above using the former to advertise the latter. He had a highly developed social conscience, as well as a belief that children learned best through play.

“Little Goody Two-Shoes” is not credited to an author, which has led to speculation that it might have been written by Oliver Goldsmith. However, there is no clear proof of this, and the evidence would seem to point to Newbery himself being the author.

Plot and storyline

Margery and Tommy are an orphaned brother and sister, so poor that Margery only has one shoe. They are befriended by a gentleman who takes Tommy away to London and orders a pair of shoes for Margery. She is so pleased to own a whole pair of shoes that she points them out to everyone she meets, “See, two shoes”, and thus earns her nickname.

Margery has been living with a local clergyman, but is forced out by the wicked local squire and has to fend for herself. She teaches herself to read by borrowing books from the children at the local school and is soon able to teach the children, using games and songs as her method of instruction.

She grows up to become a schoolteacher and is a model of enlightened teaching. When the school roof falls in, Margery rescues the children. She is later able to offer marriage guidance to a quarrelling couple by advising them to count to twenty before losing their tempers.

Her scientific approach to education is not universally popular, however, and she finds herself arrested as a witch when she uses a barometer to forecast the weather.

Despite the ills that have befallen her she never gives in to despair, neither does she bear any grudges. Indeed, when she hears about a plot to break into the squire’s house and murder him, she tells him about it and saves his life, despite him being the cause of her initial poverty by dispossessing her father and evicting her.

She eventually marries a wealthy baronet and is reunited with her brother Tommy, who has made his own fortune overseas. She uses her wealth to good effect, buying the estate of the squire and handing the land back to the tenants. When she dies, she is mourned by all.

Social and political purpose

Although this is ostensibly a children’s book, there is much more to it than that. In his introduction as “editor”, Newbery clearly writes for an adult audience (“children of six feet high” in his words) as he points to the evils visited on the populace by grasping landlords and the legal system that favours the rich against the poor. This was written at a time when “enclosures” were forcing tenant farmers off the land and removing the common land on which the poorest rural people depended for a living. It is not surprising that Goldsmith was thought by many to be the author, given the strength of his anger directed at the squirarchy for this trend (as in his celebrated poem “The Deserted Village”).

As well as the educational purpose of the book, with methods of teaching spelling as a game explained in great detail, Newbery introduces other enlightened thoughts along the way. For example, at one point Margery thinks she has seen a ghost but realises that it is only a neighbour’s dog. Newbery uses the incident to attack the common belief in ghosts and fairies, thus setting himself on the side of the rationalists and against the craze for fairy stories.

On this latter point, it is notable that “Little Goody Two-Shoes” was published in the same year as “The Castle of Otranto”, by Horace Walpole, this being the first of the “gothic novels” that were to influence the publishing scene for the rest of the century and into the next. It is particularly interesting to note that one known reader of “Little Goody Two-Shoes” was Jane Austen, whose own “Northanger Abbey” was a satirical attack on the gothic novel. It is probable that this was Jane Austen’s first completed full-length novel (although it was published after her death), and one can speculate that “Little Goody Two-Shoes” was an important influence on her as a writer.

“Little Goody Two-Shoes” is not a book that anyone would read to their children today, for the reasons mentioned in the opening paragraph above. Indeed, the only reason why people today might have heard of it is because the term “Miss Goody Two-Shoes” is sometimes used to insult someone who is prissy or prudish. We simply do not regard a person like Margery as a model to emulate, although this was not the case in past generations. It is however an interesting milestone in the history of children’s publishing, and the Jane Austen connection adds an extra reason for not forgetting it completely.

literature
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About the Creator

John Welford

I am a retired librarian, having spent most of my career in academic and industrial libraries.

I write on a number of subjects and also write stories as a member of the "Hinckley Scribblers".

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