wn fairy tales.[31] He was followed by the Brothers Grimm who preserved the traditional tales told in Germany.[20]:184 They were so popular in their home country that modern, realistic children's literature began to be looked down on there. This dislike of non-traditional stories continu

 themselves.[30]
Rousseau's ideas also had great influence in Germany, especially on German Philanthropism, a movement concerned with reforming both education and literature for children. Its' founder, Johann Bernhard Basedow, authored "Elementarwerk" as a popular textbook for children that included many illustrations by Daniel Chodowiecki. Another follower, Joachim Heinrich Campe's adaptation of Robinson Crusoe went into over 100 printings. He became Germany's "outstanding and most modern"[1]:736 writer for children. According to Hans-Heino Ewers in The International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature, "It can be argued that from this time, the history of European children's literature was largely written in Germany".[1]:737


Brothers Grimm, Wilhelm (left) and Jakob Grimm (right) from an 1855 painting by Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann
In the early 19th century, Danish author and poet Hans Christian Andersen traveled through Europe and gathered many well-known fairy tales.[31] He was followed by the Brothers Grimm who preserved the traditional tales told in Germany.[20]:184 They were so popular in their home country that modern, realistic children's literature began to be looked down on there. This dislike of non-traditional stories continued there until the beginning of the next century.[1]:739–740 The Grimm's contribution to children's literature goes beyond their collection of stories, as great as that is. As professors, they had a scholarly interest in the stories, striving to preserve them and their variations accurately, recording their sources.[7]:259
A similar project was carried out by the Norwegian scholars, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, who collected Norwegian fairy tales and published them as Norwegian Folktales, often referred to as Asbjørnsen and Moe. By compiling these stories, they preserved Norway's literary heritage and helped create the Norwegian written language.[7]:260
In Switzerland, Johann David Wyss published The Swiss Family Robinson in 1812, with the aim of teaching children about family values, good husbandry, the uses of the natural world and self-reliance. The book became popular across Europe after it was translated into French by Isabelle de Montolieu.
Golden age[edit]
The shift to a modern genre of children's literature occurred in the mid-19th century, as the didacticism of a previous age began to make way for more humorous, child-oriented books, more attuned to the child's imagination. The availability of children's literature greatly increased as well, as paper and printing became widely available and affordable, the population grew and literacy rates improved.[1]:654–655
Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes appeared in 1857, and is considered as the founding book in the school story tradition.[32]:7–8 However, it was Lewis Carroll's fantasy Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, published in 1865 in England, that signalled the change in writing style for children to an imaginative and empathetic one. Regarded as the first "English masterpiece written for chil