The Daisy, or, Cautionary Stories in Verse
Turner, Elizabeth, and John Harris. The Daisy, or, Cautionary Stories in Verse: Adapted to the Ideas of Children from Four to Eight Years Old. London: J. Harris, 1807.
The Daisy is famous for bad things happening to barely naughty people – burned, poisoned, drowned. It is the epitome of the alarmist books that were parodied first by Hoffman’s Struwwelpeter, and later by Gorey in the Gashlycrumb Tinies. To the 21st-century reader it seems absurd to have threatened such dire outcomes of typical childish misbehavior, especially for such a young audience. But putting the misbehavior into the social and physical context of nineteenth-century England casts a different light on the motivations of the author in threatening such dire consequences to naughtiness and disobedience. Read more about this book on our blog.