Chapter 14. Girlhood as a transnational creation

Abstract

Although the late-eighteenth-century Dutch market for children’s books was reliant on international examples, it was also a space for the development and dissemination of innovative forms of education by Dutch authors in the Dutch Republic and beyond. Focusing on girls’ books as one segment of the market, this chapter demonstrates that many progressive girls’ books from abroad were translated into Dutch, serving as manifestations of a hierarchically organized educational process involving girls and adult women. The Dutch, however, also reshaped these examples by developing an innovative epistolary model that enabled girls to find their own voices and to educate one another. This model, in turn, exerted an impact on international book production. The chapter argues that Dutch girls’ books fostered the development of peer education among girls through continuous and sophisticated transnational interactions with international markets.