Arnaud Berquin was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 children's author.

His most famous work was L'Ami des Enfans (1782-3) which was first translated into English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, albeit bowdlerised, by Mary Stockdale

Mary Stockdale

Mary Ridgway Stockdale was an English writer on the themes of Christian spirituality. She was the daughter of John Stockdale and sister of John Joseph Stockdale....

 and published in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1783-4 by Mary's father John Stockdale

John Stockdale

John Stockdale was an English publisher whose London shop became a salon for the political classes and who had to face two actions for defamation...

.

The work remained popular until the middle of the nineteenth century. Berquin's stories consisted of events that might happen to children in their everyday lives—they did not contain fairy tales or other imaginative literature. His books envision childhood reading as a familial exercise; for example, some of his "stories" are actually plays with parts for every member of the family. Berquin's books helped solidify the creation of the nuclear family, for "if Berquin's work has a theme, it is that parents and children live in a perfect symbiosis, the parents looking after their children's interests and the children, if behaving properly, filling their parents with joy."

External links

• L'Ami des Enfans (1782)
• Works at Project Gutenberg
  Project Gutenberg
  Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...