Class, Leisure and National Identity in British Children's Literature, 1918-1950

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Introduction

   • Hazel Sheeky Bird

   Pages 1-15

3. A Very Fuzzy Set-Defining Camping and Tramping Fiction

   • Hazel Sheeky Bird

   Pages 16-35

4. The Delights of the Open Road, Footloose and Fancy Free

   • Hazel Sheeky Bird

   Pages 36-58

5. Landscape and Tourism in the Camping and Tramping Countryside

   • Hazel Sheeky Bird

   Pages 59-86

6. Mapping the Geographical Imagination

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   Pages 87-112

7. The Family Sailing Story

   • Hazel Sheeky Bird

   Pages 113-128

8. England Expects: The Nelson Tradition and the Politics of Service in Naval Cadet and Family Sailing Stories

   • Hazel Sheeky Bird

   Pages 129-147

9. Conclusion: A Disappearing Act

   • Hazel Sheeky Bird

   Pages 148-155

10. Back Matter

    Pages 156-208

    PDF

This book places children's literature at the forefront of early twentieth-century debates about national identity and class relations that were expressed through the pursuit of leisure. Focusing on stories about hiking, camping and sailing, this book offers a fresh insight into a popular period of modern British cultural and political history.

• British children's literature
• Leisure and children's literature
• Politics and children's literature
• children's literature
• fiction
• history of literature
• identity
• Imagination
• national identity
• Tradition

"This is a readable, well-researched, and remarkable re-reading of the inter-war years in British culture and children's literature. The hugely popular genres of 'camping and tramping' novels not previously researched in such detail and family sailing stories are linked to radical interpretations of landscape and of the British maritime tradition. The result is a fresh and original linking of key, but often unconsidered, cultural elements which provides a new and often disturbing perspective on what has been seen as a quietist period in children's literature, and a retreatist historical period generally. This is literary-cultural investigation at its best." - Peter Hunt, Cardiff University, UK

• UK

  Hazel Sheeky Bird

Hazel Sheeky Bird is an independent researcher based in California, USA. She has published on the subject of escapism in Tolkien's The Hobbit and on the influence of high navalism in British and American naval stories. Her forthcoming publications examine British navalist propaganda and children's culture between 1890 and 1914.

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