Introduction

Abstract

As this introduction explains, Lettering Young Readers aims to analyse how and to what extent eighteenth-century Dutch children’s books sought to make young people literate, and how they invited their readers to use their literacy skills as a vehicle for societal, moral and intellectual progress. It introduces the sociopolitical context of the eighteenth-century Dutch Republic, the transnational comparative approach of this book and the concept of ‘agency’ used here to examine the role of children’s books in the creation of active citizens. Children’s books contributed to the acquisition of profound literacy skills that readers needed to place their own development in the service of communal social growth, but also restricted the readers’ measure of agency along the lines of age, gender and class.