Childhood in Edwardian Fiction: Worlds Enough and Time is the first book-length treatment of childhood in Edwardian fiction (1901-1914). Challenging common assumptions that the Edwardian period was simply a continuation of the Victorian or the start of the Modern, the collection reveals Edwardian fiction as fascinatingly distinctive, especially in its portrayal of childhood. Conceptions of childhood underwent a cultural seachange in the Edwardian period, seeing the child become central to 'childhood' and childhood central to the Zeitgeist in a way that had not been seen previously and would not endure in the same way after the outbreak of World War I. Gathering international expertise, the volume interweaves studies of single authors with analysis of themes, genres and trends across the period. Innovatively exploring both children's literature and literature for adults, both classics and popular fiction, the collection provides a comprehensive and compelling picture of the Edwardian fictional cult of childhood.
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Worlds Enough and Time: The Cult of Childhood in Edwardian Fiction; A.E.Gavin and A.F.Humphries
PART I: THE CHILD LOST
Pagan Papers: History, Mysticism, and Edwardian Childhood; P.March-Russell
Cult or Cull?: Peter Pan and Childhood in the Edwardian Age; K.L.McGavock
Intangible Children: Longing, Loss, and the Edwardian Dream Child in J. M. Barrie's The Little White Bird and Rudyard Kipling's 'They'; A.E.Gavin
PART II: THE CHILD AT PLAY IN HOME AND GARDEN
The Edwardian Child in the Garden: Childhood in the Fiction of Frances Hodgson Burnett; J.Darcy
Playing at House and Playing at Home: The Domestic Discourse of Games in Edwardian Fictions of Childhood; M.Beissel Heath
Separated Lives and Discordant Homes: The Otherness of Childhood in D. H. Lawrence's Early Fiction; A.F.Humphries
PART III: SOCIETY'S CHILD
Exhibiting Childhood: E. Nesbit and the Children's Welfare Exhibitions; J.Bavidge
'Girls! Girls, Everywhere!': Angela Brazil's Edwardian School Stories; M.Smith
Towards the Modern Man: Edwardian Boyhood in the Juvenile Periodical Press; S.Olsen
PART IV: SAVAGERY AND THE CHILD
Primitive Minds: Anthropology, Children, and Savages in Andrew Lang and Rudyard Kipling; K.Sands-O'Connor
Truth and Claw: The Beastly Children and Childlike Beasts of Saki, Beatrix Potter, and Kenneth Grahame; E.Hale
Murdering Adulthood: From Child Killers to Boy Soldiers in Saki's Fiction; B.Gibson
Index
ADRIENNE E. GAVIN is a Reader in English at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. She is author of Dark Horse: A Life of Anna Sewell and co-editor of Mystery in Children's Literature and Re-Embroidering the Robe: Faith, Myth and Literary Creation Since 1850.
ANDREW F. HUMPHRIES is a Senior Lecturer in English and Drama Education at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK, where he specializes in twentieth-century literature. He is currently working on a PhD in English entitled Motion Human Inhuman: Transport, Travel, and Technological Mobility in the Novels of D.H. Lawrence.
Description
Childhood in Edwardian Fiction: Worlds Enough and Time is the first book-length treatment of childhood in Edwardian fiction (1901-1914). Challenging common assumptions that the Edwardian period was simply a continuation of the Victorian or the start of the Modern, the collection reveals Edwardian fiction as fascinatingly distinctive, especially in its portrayal of childhood. Conceptions of childhood underwent a cultural seachange in the Edwardian period, seeing the child become central to 'childhood' and childhood central to the Zeitgeist in a way that had not been seen previously and would not endure in the same way after the outbreak of World War I. Gathering international expertise, the volume interweaves studies of single authors with analysis of themes, genres and trends across the period. Innovatively exploring both children's literature and literature for adults, both classics and popular fiction, the collection provides a comprehensive and compelling picture of the Edwardian fictional cult of childhood.
Contents
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Worlds Enough and Time: The Cult of Childhood in Edwardian Fiction; A.E.Gavin and A.F.Humphries
PART I: THE CHILD LOST
Pagan Papers: History, Mysticism, and Edwardian Childhood; P.March-Russell
Cult or Cull?: Peter Pan and Childhood in the Edwardian Age; K.L.McGavock
Intangible Children: Longing, Loss, and the Edwardian Dream Child in J. M. Barrie's The Little White Bird and Rudyard Kipling's 'They'; A.E.Gavin
PART II: THE CHILD AT PLAY IN HOME AND GARDEN
The Edwardian Child in the Garden: Childhood in the Fiction of Frances Hodgson Burnett; J.Darcy
Playing at House and Playing at Home: The Domestic Discourse of Games in Edwardian Fictions of Childhood; M.Beissel Heath
Separated Lives and Discordant Homes: The Otherness of Childhood in D. H. Lawrence's Early Fiction; A.F.Humphries
PART III: SOCIETY'S CHILD
Exhibiting Childhood: E. Nesbit and the Children's Welfare Exhibitions; J.Bavidge
'Girls! Girls, Everywhere!': Angela Brazil's Edwardian School Stories; M.Smith
Towards the Modern Man: Edwardian Boyhood in the Juvenile Periodical Press; S.Olsen
PART IV: SAVAGERY AND THE CHILD
Primitive Minds: Anthropology, Children, and Savages in Andrew Lang and Rudyard Kipling; K.Sands-O'Connor
Truth and Claw: The Beastly Children and Childlike Beasts of Saki, Beatrix Potter, and Kenneth Grahame; E.Hale
Murdering Adulthood: From Child Killers to Boy Soldiers in Saki's Fiction; B.Gibson
Index
Authors
ADRIENNE E. GAVIN is a Reader in English at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. She is author of Dark Horse: A Life of Anna Sewell and co-editor of Mystery in Children's Literature and Re-Embroidering the Robe: Faith, Myth and Literary Creation Since 1850.
ANDREW F. HUMPHRIES is a Senior Lecturer in English and Drama Education at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK, where he specializes in twentieth-century literature. He is currently working on a PhD in English entitled Motion Human Inhuman: Transport, Travel, and Technological Mobility in the Novels of D.H. Lawrence.
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