First Person Firsts

[steepholm]

Be warned: this is where I show up my ignorance of nineteenth-century children's books.

This query is a spin-off from a conversation with lady_schrapnell about first-person child narrators. In short, when do they start? I don't mean a story told (a la Treasure Island (1883)) from the point of view of an adult recalling events a good few years before - interesting as those can be - but one that attempts to tell the story from a child's point of view, and preferably in a child's voice. I feel there should be heaps* of these, but we could come up with none earlier than Huck Finn (1885). Even afterwards there seems to be a bit of a dearth. There's Mrs Molesworth's The Girls and I (1892), and later on of course Nesbit's Oswald Bastable. But shouldn't there be, and aren't there, oodles more? Perhaps in magazines? I suppose I'm particularly interested in children's books, but would be delighted to hear of others.

* My daughter has been on a Jacqueline Wilson kick recently, and has pointed out that she uses the word 'heaps', er, loads - and that it sounds kind of old-fashioned in one whose finger is placed so firmly on the pulse of contemporary British girlhood. Now of course I'm finding it creeping into my own vocabulary, and am scrambling for synonyms.

Comments

[altariel.livejournal.com]

To me "heaps" sounds Australian, mostly likely coming from Neighbours, which had tons (see what I did there?) of influence on my vernacular as a teenager. All that time ago.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Huck Finn were the earliest. Children were meant to be seen and not heard...