Pinchard’s children’s books were "didactic". She admired the writers
Barbauld and
Genlis, who put education ahead of fantasy, and she aspired to emulate their work. In her preface to
The Blind Child, or Anecdotes of the Wyndham Family (1791) she outlined her hopes to "awaken in the rising generation" a "lively wish for goodness". After the novel’s blind heroine has her sight restored by surgery, the doctor praises her sister for not showing "exaggerated feeling", and her mother adds that true sensibility is better than "false tenderness".
The Blind Child was republished often over the next twenty years, both in England and in North America. Its anonymous title page said it was "by a lady", while subsequent books usually announced they were "by the author of
The Blind Child". It has continued to be her best-known work. In between narrative sections, conversations were written out as simple dialogues between named speakers. Pinchard’s next publication was
Dramatic Dialogues (1792), where the seven tales look like plays. Encouraging girls to perform theatrical works was frowned on by many, and Pinchard justified her use of dialogue, with occasional "stage" directions, by saying she thought it was easier to captivate young people with stories told without the repeated use of phrases like 'she said', 'she replied' etc. Her continuing interest in moral education for the young was clear on the title page of
The Two Cousins (1794) which was presented as
"a moral story for the use of young persons in which is exemplified the necessity of moderation and justice to the attainment of happiness." Pinchard's other fiction included the
Ward of Delamere,
Family Affection: a tale for youth,
Mystery and Confidence, and
The Young Countess, which appeared in 1820. A review at that time complimented "all the productions" of the author, saying they had been praised by children's writer, critic and educational reformer
Sarah Trimmer. Their value lay in the "especial solicitude of the author to inculcate the necessity of an undeviating regard to habits of piety, as the safest guarantee of a virtuous reputation" ==Personal life==