Fairy Tales, Natural History and Victorian Culture

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Laurence Talairach-Vielmas

   Pages 1-14

3. From the Wonders of Nature to the Wonders of Evolution: Charles Kingsley’s Nursery Fairies

   • Laurence Talairach-Vielmas

   Pages 15-46

4. ‘How Are You to Enter the Fairy-Land of Science?’: The Wonders of the Natural World in Arabella Buckley’s Popular Science Works for Children

   • Laurence Talairach-Vielmas

   Pages 47-64

5. The Mechanization of Feelings: Mary de Morgan’s ‘A Toy Princess’

   • Laurence Talairach-Vielmas

   Pages 65-79

6. Nature under Glass: Victorian Cinderellas, Magic and Metamorphosis

   • Laurence Talairach-Vielmas

   Pages 80-100

7. Nature Exposed: Charting the Wild Body in ‘Little Red Riding Hood’

   • Laurence Talairach-Vielmas

   Pages 101-123

8. Nature and the Natural World in Mary Louisa Molesworth’s Christmas-Tree Land

   • Laurence Talairach-Vielmas

   Pages 124-140

9. Edith Nesbit’s Fairies and Freaks of Nature: Environmental Consciousness in Five Children and It

   • Laurence Talairach-Vielmas

   Pages 141-159

10. Epilogue

    • Laurence Talairach-Vielmas

    Pages 160-162

11. Back Matter

    Pages 163-217

    PDF

Fairy Tales, Natural History and Victorian Culture examines how literary fairy tales were informed by natural historical knowledge in the Victorian period, as well as how popular science books used fairies to explain natural history at a time when 'nature' became a much debated word.

• culture
• time
• Victorian era
• British and Irish Literature

“A winner of the SAES/AFEA Research Prize, this rich and complex study brilliantly merges fairylands and scientific worlds. … proves a compelling read, and a fascinating and valuable introduction to fields as diverse as nineteenth century’s natural history, fantastic literature (not only for children) and Victorian culture at large.” (Mara Mattoscio, Rivista di Studi Vittoriani, Vol. 40, 2017) 

• University of Toulouse, France

  Laurence Talairach-Vielmas

Laurence Talairach-Vielmas is Professor of English at the University of Toulouse, France, and Associate Researcher at Alexandre Koyré Center for the History of Science and Technology in Paris. Her research specializes on the relations between literature and science. She is the author of Wilkie Collins, Medicine and the Gothic (2009) and Moulding the Female Body in Victorian Fairy Tales and Sensation Novels (2007).

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