riter Oliver Optic published over 100 books. 1868 brought the publication of the "epoch-making book"[7]:45 such as Little Women, the fictionalized autobiography of Louisa May Alcott. This coming of

dren"[7]:44 and as a founding book in the development of fantasy literature, its publication opened the "First Golden Age" of children's literature in Britain and Europe that continued until the early 1900s.[32]:18 Another important book of that decade was The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby by Reverend Charles Kingsley in 1862, which became extremely popular in England, and has remained as a classic of British children's literature.
In 1883, Carlo Collodi wrote the first Italian fantasy novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio, which was translated many times. In Britain, The Princess and the Goblin and its sequel The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald appeared in 1872 and '83, and the adventure stories Treasure Island and Kidnapped, both by Robert Louis Stevenson, were extremely popular in the 1880s. Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book was first published in 1894, and J. M. Barrie told the story of Peter Pan in the novel Peter and Wendy in 1911. Johanna Spyri's two-part novel Heidi was published in Switzerland in 1880 and 1881.[1]:749 In the US, children's publishing entered a period of growth after the American Civil War in 1865. Boys' book writer Oliver Optic published over 100 books. 1868 brought the publication of the "epoch-making book"[7]:45 such as Little Women, the fictionalized autobiography of Louisa May Alcott. This coming of age story established the genre of realistic family books in the United States. Mark Twain released Tom Sawyer in 1876, and in 1880 another bestseller, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, a collection of African American folk tales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris, appeared.[1]:478
Recent national traditions[edit]
Britain[edit]


A line-up of the American second edition printings of The Hobbit.
The Golden Age of Children's Literature ended with World War I in Great Britain and Europe, and the period before World War II was much slower in children's publishing. The main exceptions in England were the publications of Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne in 1926 and The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien in 1937.[1]:682–683 In 1941, children's paperback books were first released in England under the Puffin Books imprint, and their lower prices helped make book buying possible for children during World War II.[1]:475–476
In the 1950s, the book market in Europe began recovering from the effects of two world wars. In Britain, C. S. Lewis published the first installment of The Chronicles of Narnia series in 1950, Dodie Smith's The Hundred and One Dalmatians was published in 1956, and Roald Dahl wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 1964. Children's fantasy literature remained strong in Great Britain through the 1900s. In Wales, the Welsh Joint Education Committee and the Welsh Books Council encouraged the publication of children's books in the Welsh language as well as books in English about Wales.
In 1997, J. K. Rowling published the first book in the The Harry Potter Series in England. Despite its huge success, the children's book market in Britain suffered at th