The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes

It was influential to subsequent authors, revolutionary in the development of its literary genre, and popular, noted for its female heroine in a realist setting.

[2] The fable tells of Goody Two-Shoes, the nickname of a poor orphan girl named Margery Meanwell, who goes through life with only one shoe.

This serves as proof that her virtue has been rewarded and her wealth earned, a popular theme in children's literature of the era.

Washington Irving was one supporter of this attribution; he wrote: "Several quaint little tales introduced in Goldsmith's Essays show that he had a turn for this species of mock history; and the advertisement and title-page bear the stamp of his sly and playful humor.

For example, it appears a century earlier in Charles Cotton's Voyage to Ireland in Burlesque (1670):[8] Mistress mayoress complained that the pottage was cold; 'And all long of your fiddle-faddle,' quoth she.