New York- Before Harry Potter there was “Slovenly Peter”.

　　Written by Heinrich Hoffmann and published in Germany in 1845, it is one of the best-selling children’s books ever, translated into more than 100 languages. And what a piece of work it is. A girl plays with matches and suffers horrendous burns, on all her clothes” And arms, and hands, and eyes, and nose;/ Till she had nothing more to lose/ Expect her little scarlet shoes.” A little boy who sucks his thumb has his thumbs cut off by the Scissor Man.

　　And in the difference between Harry and Peter lies the lesson of children’s literature, said Jack Zipes, general editor of the new Norton Anthology of Children’s Literature, published this month by W. W. Norton & Company. “These works reflect how we view children, and something about us, “ said Mr. Zipes, 68, a professor of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota, in a telephone interview from Minneapolis.

　　The anthology is one of the first modern, comprehensive, critical collections of children’s literature. And it is intended not for children, but for scholars.

　　 “ It’s a huge event, a real arrival of children’s literature in academic studies, “ said John Cech, director of the Center for Children’s Literature and Culture at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

　　The anthology, 2,471 pages long and weighing more than a kilo, covers 350 years of alphabet books, fairy tales, animal fables and the like, and took Mr. Zipes and four other editors four years to compile. Some stories are reprinted in full, with illustrations; others are excerpted.

　　In it, the editors trace the history of juvenile literature from what is probably the first children’s book, “ Orbis Sensualium Pictus, “ an illustrated Latin grammar by Johann Amos Comenius published in 1658.

　　Most early children’s books were didactic, intended to civilize and save potential sinners- albeit upper-class ones, since they were more likely to be literate.

　　It is striking in the anthology to see the way certain forms cross cultures. Lullabies, for instance, have a nearly universal form, with elongated vowels, long pauses and common themes of separation, hunger, bogeymen, death- as if singing of these terrors could banish them form a child’s dream world. One stunning entry is “ Lullaby of a Female Convict to Her Child, the Night Previous to Execution, “ from 1807. “ Who then will sooth thee, when thy mother’s sleeping,” the mother sings. “ In her low grave of shame and infamy ! / Sleep, baby mine! –to-morrow I must leave thee.”

　　The editors write that attitudes toward children began to change in the mid-18th century. In 1762, in his revolutionary “ Emile; or, On Education,” Rousseau wrote that children are intrinsically innocent. In the mid-to late-19th century, with the rise of the “isms,” as Mr. Zipes put it –Darwinism, Freudianism, communism, Shavian socialism—children were recognized as people, and their literature became less heavily didactic.

　　Throughout the text, in editors’ notes and introduction, are tidbits about the hidden messages in the literature. “ London Bridge Is Falling Down,” say the editors, contains coded references to the medieval custom of burying people alive in the foundations of bridges.

　　In the late 1960’s and early 70’s, as the anthology demonstrates, children’s literature was approached in a different way. Black writers like Julius Lester and Mildred Taylor came to prominence in the United States along with Latino and Native American authors. Nowadays, the boundaries between adult and children’s fiction are disappearing. Nothing is taboo. Included in the anthology are both Francesca Lia Block’s story “ Wolf”(2000), about rape, and “ The Bleeding Man”(1974), a story about torture by Craig Kee Strete, a Native American writer.

　　Notably absent, however, is Harry Potter. That was because the cost of excerpting the Potter books was too high, Mr. Zipes said. Besides that, he said, “the Harry Potter books are very conventional and mediocre.”

　　Mr. Zipes called the Potter books “the ideological champions of patriarchal society,” adding: “They celebrate the magical powers of a boy, with a girl – Hermione – cheerleading him. You can predict the outcome.”

　　Never mind, thought. Harry Potter is doing just fine.