The present volume offers a pioneering selection of stories for children, published between 1765 and 1808 by Irish authors.

Learning better than House and Land (1808) is a short novel by the Roman Catholic classicist and educationalist, John Carey (1756–1829). This is followed by Stories of Old Daniel; or, Tales of Wonder and Delight (1808), an innovative collection of tales by the unorthodox Lady Mount Cashell (1772–1835), a former pupil of Mary Wollstonecraft.

The collection also offers the celebrated fable of three little fishes from The Fool of Quality; or, The History of Henry, Earl of Moreland (1765–70), by the novelist, playwright, poet and controversialist, Henry Brooke (1703–83), together with two later versions of this much-admired tale.

Offering variety in content, genre, and style, the volume both complements and complicates existing critical approaches to children’s fiction, while arguing for its importance for all those concerned with the literature of the long eighteenth century.