 Sarah Trimmer was prompted to publish The Guardian of Education by the flood of new children's books on the market early in the nineteenth century and by her fear that those books might contain French Revolutionary values. The 1790s had been one of the most tumultuous decades in Europe's history, with the French revolution, increased demands for reform in Britain, and the French Revolutionary Wars. Following this upsurge in radicalism, a conservative backlash erupted in Britain; the Guardian was, in many ways, a part of this movement. In its pages, Trimmer denounced the Revolution and the philosophers whose works she believed were responsible for it, particularly Jean-Jacques Rousseau. She argued that there existed a vast conspiracy, organized by the atheistic and democratic revolutionaries of France, to undermine and overthrow the legitimate governments of Europe. From her perspective, the conspirators were attempting to overturn traditional society by "endeavouring to infect the minds of the rising generation, through the medium of Books of Education and Children's Books" [emphasis Trimmer's]. She intended to combat this conspiracy by pointing parents towards properly Christian books.
