"Advice for Good Little Girls" is a humorous

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

by Mark Twain, first published in 1865, which lists satirical pieces of advice for how young girls should behave. ''The Routledge Encyclopedia of Mark Twain'' called it an early precursor to Twain's satirical youth novels ''

Tom Sawyer Thomas Sawyer () is the titular character of the Mark Twain novel ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876). He appears in three other novels by Twain: '' Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1884), '' Tom Sawyer Abroad'' (1894), and '' Tom Sawyer, ...

'' and ''

Huckleberry Finn Huckleberry "Huck" Finn is a fictional character created by Mark Twain who first appeared in the book ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876) and is the protagonist and narrator of its sequel, ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1884). He is 12 ...

''.

Background

"Advice for Good Little Girls" first appeared in the ''California Youth's Companion'' in 1865, as a companion piece to a similar but longer essay, "Advice for Good Little Boys." The essay was reprinted in ''The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches'' (1867), and was later included in Twain's '' The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories'' (1906). As a satirical retort to the didactic child-rearing literature common at the time, Twain lists subversive, facetious pieces of advice for girls, often encouraging mischievous behavior. These include "You ought never to 'sass' old people unless they 'sass' you first" and "You ought never to take your little brother's ' chewing-gum' away from him by main force; it is better to rope him in with the promise of the first two dollars and a half you find floating down the river on a grindstone." The essay was republished as a picture book by Enchanted Lion Press in 2013, under the title ''Advice to Little Girls'', with illustrations by

Vladimir Radunsky Vladimir Radunsky (1 March 1954 – 11 September 2018) was a Russian-born American artist, designer, author and illustrator who lived in Rome. Life and work Born in the Russian city of Perm, Vladimir Radunsky grew up in Moscow where he studied ...

. The re-release was praised by outlets including ''

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

'' and the ''Los Angeles Times'', which called it "as essential today as it was a century-and-a-half ago."

References

External links

* 1865 short stories Short stories by Mark Twain {{story-stub