Family: Henry THRALE, M.P. / Hester Lynch SALUSBURY

Content

The manuscript comprises two main parts:

1. Moral tales emphasising honesty, obedience, kindness, and other virtues; and
2. Poems, hymns, prayers, and short verses, many with a religious tone.

It also contains several recorded dialogues between Thrale and her children, together with occasional educational notes and anecdotes. The work embodies Thrale’s conviction that early education should combine intellectual instruction with moral and religious formation, delivered in an entertaining rather than didactic manner.

Publication

The Children's Book remains unpublished as a complete volume. Individual stories, poems, and dialogues have appeared in:

• James L. Clifford’s biography *Hester Lynch Piozzi* (1941, appendices)
• Katharine C. Balderston’s 1942 and 1951 editions of Thraliana
• Later anthologies of eighteenth-century children’s literature and women’s writing