"Antony, ou la Conscience": The First Children's Story With an Australian Setting?

Abstract

"Antony, ou la Conscience":The First Children's Story With an Australian Setting? Patricia A. Clancy (bio) It is always somewhat risky to claim that any work is the first of its kind, for no sooner has one literary historian made the claim than another will come forward with an earlier example. Nor is there any intrinsic merit in a literary work being the first of its kind. What is interesting is the reason why a subject or an image should be taken up at a particular time, and the way it is interpreted in a work of fiction. Children's books, like other forms of imaginative literature, reflect aspects of the social period in which they were written, and can serve as a guide to the history and popular culture of their country of origin. Before the end of the eighteenth century, voyages of discovery in the Pacific and elsewhere had aroused widespread interest in England and Europe. It was a time of scientific advancement and enquiry, when education received much attention. Accounts of Captain Cook's voyages were widely read both in England and France, and the Gumuchian catalogue of French juvenile literature includes many titles of miniature editions of voyages published for children and other books written to make geography palatable for young people. Most include some mention of the new country in this fifth part of the world, and later of the penal colony established there by the British. The discovery and early settlement of Australia were also more or less contemporaneous with a great development in the publishing of children's books, so that it was only a matter of time before the subject appealed to writers of children's fiction as a new, interesting and instructive setting for their young heroes and heroines. In France at least, the novelty was to last for most of the nineteenth century.1 Botany Bay is mentioned briefly in two early tales for children: Münchhausen Wunderbare Reisen und Abenteuer zu Wasser und zu Lande (sixth edition 1789), and Maria Edgeworth's cautionary tale "Lazy Lawrence" (1796). However, up to now, it has generally been accepted that the first work of fiction for children with an Australian setting is Alfred Dudley; or the Australian Settlers, which did not appear until 1830 in England (Muir 11; Nial 8; O'Neill 29). "Antony ou la Conscience" by Mme de Renneville, which has recently come to our notice, was published in France in 1812 or 1813, a good thirteen years earlier.2 Very little is known about Mme Sophie de Senneterre, dame de Renneville, other than that she was born in Caen in 1772 of a noble family who lost a great deal during the Revolution. She received an excellent education, enabling her at quite an early age to make a living from her literary work, most of which was written to educate and entertain children. She was able to support her parents from the proceeds, a rare achievement at that time. Her books were popular with parents, teachers, and with children themselves.3 One can see from the fly-leaves that, like many similar books printed for young people in the nineteenth century, they were often given as prizes and gifts. Mme de Renneville died of smallpox in Paris in 1822 at fifty years of age, shortly after her mother. Once launched, she was a prolific writer; her first book is Lettres d'Octavie, jeune pensionnaire de la maison de St-Clair in 1806. She followed this work on the education of young girls with a historical novel on King Stanislas of Poland, and later turned her attention to younger children. From 1808 on, she published several works each year, many of which were reprinted throughout the century. Her entry in the catalogue of the Bibliothèque Nationale runs into twenty-seven columns. The Annuaire nécroloqique attributes thirty-eight works to her, and Michaud's Biographie Universelle thirty-six. She had several publishers in Paris, Limoges and Rouen, including E. & M. Ardant and A. Eymery, leading publishers of children's literature, who later handled many books with an Australian setting. She wrote a few novels, one of which bears...