Childhood in Edwardian Fiction

Childhood in Edwardian Fiction

Author: A. Gavin

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2008-12-17

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0230595138

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The first book-length look at childhood in Edwardian fiction, this book challenges assumptions that the Edwardian period was simply a continuation of the Victorian or the start of the Modern. Exploring both classics and popular fiction, the authors provide a a compelling picture of the Edwardian fictional cult of childhood.


Literature of the 1900s

Literature of the 1900s

Author: Jonathan Wild

Publisher: Edinburgh History of Twentieth-Century Literature in Britain

Published: 2018-08-13

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9781474437707

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Challenges conventional views of the Edwardian period as either a hangover of Victorianism or a bystander to literary modernism In this ground-breaking study, Jonathan Wild investigates the literary history of the Edwardian decade. This period, long overlooked by critics, is revealed as avibrant cultural era whose writers were determined to break away from the stifling influence of preceding Victorianism. In the hands of this generation, which included writers such as Arnold Bennett, Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, Beatrix Potter, and H. G. Wells, the new century presented a uniqueopportunity to fashion innovative books for fresh audiences. Wild traces this literary innovation by conceptualising the focal points of his study as branches of one of the new department stores that epitomized Edwardian modernity. These "departments" - war and imperialism, the rise of the lowermiddle class, children's literature, technology and decadence, and the condition of England - offer both discrete and interconnected ways in which to understand the distinctiveness and importance of the Edwardian literary scene.Overall, The Great Edwardian Emporium offers a long-overdue investigation into a decade of literature that provided the cultural foundation for the coming century.


Precocious Children and Childish Adults

Precocious Children and Childish Adults

Author: Claudia Nelson

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2012-07-02

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1421406128

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Especially evident in Victorian-era writings is a rhetorical tendency to liken adults to children and children to adults. Claudia Nelson examines this literary phenomenon and explores the ways in which writers discussed the child-adult relationship during this period. Though far from ubiquitous, the terms “child-woman,” “child-man,” and “old-fashioned child” appear often enough in Victorian writings to prompt critical questions about the motivations and meanings of such generational border crossings. Nelson carefully considers the use of these terms and connects invocations of age inversion to developments in post-Darwinian scientific thinking and attitudes about gender roles, social class, sexuality, power, and economic mobility. She brilliantly analyzes canonical works of Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, William Makepeace Thackeray, Bram Stoker, and Robert Louis Stevenson alongside lesser-known writings to demonstrate the diversity of literary age inversion and its profound influence on Victorian culture. By considering the full context of Victorian age inversion, Precocious Children and Childish Adults illuminates the complicated pattern of anxiety and desire that creates such ambiguity in the writings of the time. Scholars of Victorian literature and culture, as well as readers interested in children’s literature, childhood studies, and gender studies, will welcome this excellent work from a major figure in the field.


Ungovernable

Ungovernable

Author: Therese Oneill

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2019-04-16

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 0316481890

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From the author of the "hysterically funny and unsettlingly fascinating" New York Times bestseller Unmentionable, a hilarious illustrated guide to the secrets of Victorian child-rearing (Jenny Lawson). Feminist historian Therese Oneill is back, to educate you on what to expect when you're expecting . . . a Victorian baby! In Ungovernable, Oneill conducts an unforgettable tour through the backwards, pseudoscientific, downright bizarre parenting fashions of the Victorians, advising us on: How to be sure you're not too ugly, sickly, or stupid to breed What positions and room decor will help you conceive a son How much beer, wine, cyanide and heroin to consume while pregnant How to select the best peasant teat for your child Which foods won't turn your children into sexual deviants And so much more. Endlessly surprising, wickedly funny, and filled with juicy historical tidbits and images, Ungovernable provides much-needed perspective on -- and comic relief from -- the age-old struggle to bring up baby.


Charles Dickens and the Victorian Child

Charles Dickens and the Victorian Child

Author: Amberyl Malkovich

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 0415899087

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By examining some of Dickens's works that contain the imperfect child, Malkovich considers the construction, romanticization, and socialization of the Victorian child within work read by and for children during the Victorian Era, contending that the Victorian child can still be found in popular literatures read by children contemporarily.


Our Island Story

Our Island Story

Author: H. E. Marshall

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2013-02-20

Total Pages: 572

ISBN-13: 1625583745

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Our Island Story is the "history" of England up to Queen Victoria's Death. Marshall used these stories to tell her children about their homeland, Great Britain. To add to the excitement, she mixed in a bit of myth as well as a few legends.


The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit

The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit

Author: Eleanor Fitzsimons

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2019-10-08

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 168335687X

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A Sunday Times Best Book of the Year: The “informative and entertaining” first major biography of the trailblazing, controversial children’s author (The Washington Post). Born in 1858, Edith Nesbit is today considered the first modern writer for children and the inventor of the children’s adventure story. In The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit, award-winning biographer Eleanor Fitzsimons uncovers the little-known details of her life, introducing readers to the Fabian Society cofounder and fabulous socialite who hosted legendary parties and had admirers by the dozen, including George Bernard Shaw. Through Nesbit’s letters and archival research, Fitzsimons reveals “E.” to have been a prolific lecturer and writer on socialism and shows how Nesbit incorporated these ideas into her writing, thereby influencing a generation of children—an aspect of her literary legacy never before examined. Fitzsimons’s riveting biography brings new light to the life and works of this remarkable writer and woman. “Meticulous and invaluable...exceptionally illuminating and detailed.” —The Wall Street Journal “Fitzsimons handily reassembles the hundreds of intricate, idiosyncratic parts of the miraculous E. Nesbit machine.” —The New York Times Book Review “I’ve always loved the work of E. Nesbit—The Railway Children and Five Children and It are my favorites—but I knew nothing about the extraordinary, surprising life of this great figure in children’s literature . . . so gripping that I read [it] in two days.” —Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times-bestsellingauthor of The Happiness Project “A charming, lively, and old-fashioned biography . . . highly readable.” —Publishers Weekly “A terrific book.” —Neil Gaiman


Children's Literature

Children's Literature

Author: Seth Lerer

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2009-04-01

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 0226473023

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Ever since children have learned to read, there has been children’s literature. Children’s Literature charts the makings of the Western literary imagination from Aesop’s fables to Mother Goose, from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to Peter Pan, from Where the Wild Things Are to Harry Potter. The only single-volume work to capture the rich and diverse history of children’s literature in its full panorama, this extraordinary book reveals why J. R. R. Tolkien, Dr. Seuss, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Beatrix Potter, and many others, despite their divergent styles and subject matter, have all resonated with generations of readers. Children’s Literature is an exhilarating quest across centuries, continents, and genres to discover how, and why, we first fall in love with the written word. “Lerer has accomplished something magical. Unlike the many handbooks to children’s literature that synopsize, evaluate, or otherwise guide adults in the selection of materials for children, this work presents a true critical history of the genre. . . . Scholarly, erudite, and all but exhaustive, it is also entertaining and accessible. Lerer takes his subject seriously without making it dull.”—Library Journal (starred review) “Lerer’s history reminds us of the wealth of literature written during the past 2,600 years. . . . With his vast and multidimensional knowledge of literature, he underscores the vital role it plays in forming a child’s imagination. We are made, he suggests, by the books we read.”—San Francisco Chronicle “There are dazzling chapters on John Locke and Empire, and nonsense, and Darwin, but Lerer’s most interesting chapter focuses on girls’ fiction. . . . A brilliant series of readings.”—Diane Purkiss, Times Literary Supplement