The English version is translated from the original Latin, but both author and translator are unknown. The Babees Book, in the Harleian Manuscripts, was written about 14th, for children of royal or noble blood then serving as pages in palace or castle. Puer ad Mensam is ascribed to John Lydgate, about 1430, and is in the Lambeth Manuscripts. Miss Yonge says, “Up to the Georgian era there were no books at all for children or the poor, excepting the class-books containing old ballads, such as Chevy Chase, and short tales, such as The King and the Cobbler, Whittington and his Cat.” We shall nevertheless see that there were English books for children (and it is with no others that we have to deal) long before this time. The very same tale has been heard by the Northmen Vikings, as they lay on their shields on deck and by the Arabs, couched under the stars in the Syrian plains, when the flocks were gathered in, and the mares were picketed by the tents.” Children’s books, however, are a late growth of literature.
“Many of them,” in Thackeray’s words, “have been narrated, almost in their present shape, for thousands of years since, to little copper-colored Sanscrit children. There have been children’s stories and folk-tales ever since man first learned to speak. It is hard to imagine a world without books for children.
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