(5)The prolific Victorian boys writers such as W.H.G. The first substantial novel, for boy readers, written by John B. It was a fairly short book, intended for young children.
(4)The first full-length story-version of Robin Hood for children appears to be Joseph Cundall’s 1841 novel Robin Hood and his Merry Foresters. (3)The popularity of Scott’s Ivanhoe prompted the publisher Longman, to issue a new edition of Joseph Ritson’s great late eighteenth century work on the Robin Hood ballads in 1820, designed as ‘a book which could with propriety be put into the hands of young persons’. In 1804 Benjamin Tabart brought out a 40-page prose version followed by William Darton’s children’s story in 1818. (2) In the nineteenth century the number of books presenting the life and adventures of Robin Hood for young readers was quite low. Apart from prose rendering of the old Robin Hood ballads in the beginning of that century, there was little else. However, children’s editions of the traditional chapbooks were still being produced in the 1840s. The emergence of a Robin Hood ballad anthology in folding toy-book form, the appearance of more and bigger illustrations, and the increased popularity of connected prose narratives rather than the traditional verse garlands were the main elements in the revolution in book-production for children. (1)During Wordsworth’s own life-time a change occurred in which writers and publishers were able to produce versions of the Robin Hood tales addressed specifically to young readers. The many Robin Hood Garlands of the late 18th century may have been read by more children that adults, but with their traditionally coarse humour, they were not written specifically for children however not long after 1800, the situation began to alter.
It was as a boy that William Wordsworth (1770-1850) first encountered in the chapbooks ‘the Wishing-Cap/of Fortunatus, and the invisible Coat/Of Jack the Giant-Killer, Robin Hood/And Sabra in the forest with St George.
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