The History of Sandford and Merton: Illustrated

The History of Sandford and Merton (1783-1789) was a bestselling children's book written by Thomas Day. He began it as a contribution to Richard Lovell and Honora Edgeworth’s Harry and Lucy, a collection of short stories for children that Maria Edgeworth continued some years after Honora died. He eventually expanded his original short story into the first volume of The History of Sandford and Merton, which was published anonymously in 1783; two further volumes subsequently followed in 1786 and 1789. The book was wildly successful and was reprinted until the end of the nineteenth century. It retained enough popularity or invoked enough nostalgia at the end of the nineteenth century to inspire a satire, The New History of Sandford and Merton, whose preface proudly announces that it will “teach you what to don’t.” The History of Sandford and Merton is not a "history" in the modern sense but rather an assemblage of stories. Day both wrote himself and extracted from a multitude of sources. That is only nominally held together by a thread narrative. Follows the reformation of Tommy Merton who is transformed from a spoiled six-year-old boy into a virtuous gentleman. Tommy, having been pampered and indulged by his mother and their slaves in the West Indies, is a proud and ignorant aristocrat; he lacks the sterling qualities of “plain, honest” Henry Sandford, the yeoman farmer’s son, who becomes his model and mentor in the book.