''A Child's History of England'' is a book by English author

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...

. It first appeared in serial form in '' Household Words'', running from 25 January 1851 to 10 December 1853. Dickens also published the work in book form in three volumes: the first volume on 20 December 1851, the second on 25 December 1852 and the third on 24 December 1853. Although the volumes were published in December, each was postdated the following year. They bore the titles: * Volume I – England from the Ancient Times, to the Death of King John (1852) * Volume II – England from the Reign of Henry the Third, to the Reign of Richard the Third (1853) * Volume III – England from the Reign of Henry the Seventh to the Revolution of 1688 (1854) Dickens dedicated the book to "My own dear children, whom I hope it may help, bye and bye, to read with interest larger and better books on the same subject." The history covered the period between 50 BC and 1689, ending with a short chapter summarising events from 1689 until the accession of

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

in 1837. In a letter to his friend Douglas William Jerrold, Dickens confessed that he was composing the book so that he could prevent his children from embracing

conservatism Conservatism is a Philosophy of culture, cultural, Social philosophy, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, Convention (norm), customs, and Value (ethics and social science ...

I am writing a little history of England for my boy ... For I don't know what I should do if he were to get hold of any conservative or High Church notions; and the best way of guarding against any such horrible result is, I take it, to wring the parrot's neck in his very cradle.

''A Child's History'' was included in the curricula of British schoolchildren well into the 20th century, with successive editions published from 1851 to

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

References

External links

Online editions *
''A Child's History of England'' Vol. 1
London, Bradbury and Evans, 1852 at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

''A Child's History of England'' Vol. 2
London, Bradbury and Evans, 1853 at

''A Child's History of England'' Vol. 3
London, Bradbury and Evans, 1854 at

London, Chapman & Hall, New York, Charles Scribner's sons, 1905 *
''A Child's History of England''
eBooks@Adelaide 2004 – Easy to read HTML version. {{DEFAULTSORT:Childs History Of England, A 1851 non-fiction books 1850s children's books Books by Charles Dickens Children's history books History books about England Works originally published in Household Words