Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- General Editor's Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Department of War and External Affairs: The Anglo-Boer War and Imperialism
- 2 Department of Administration: Office Clerks and Shop Assistants
- 3 Children's Department: Edwardian Children's Literature
- 4 Department of Decadence: Sex, Cars and Money
- 5 Department of Internal Affairs: England and the Countryside
- Afterword
- Works Cited
- Index
3 - Children's Department: Edwardian Children's Literature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 April 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- General Editor's Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Department of War and External Affairs: The Anglo-Boer War and Imperialism
- 2 Department of Administration: Office Clerks and Shop Assistants
- 3 Children's Department: Edwardian Children's Literature
- 4 Department of Decadence: Sex, Cars and Money
- 5 Department of Internal Affairs: England and the Countryside
- Afterword
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
By any standards, the Edwardian decade was a remarkably fertile one for the publication of children's literature which was to have an enduring appeal. Although any notion of an established canon of British children's literature is necessarily subjective, the following would have a strong claim on any such grouping: Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), and her subsequent series of illustrated animal tales; E. Nesbit's family and fantasy stories including The Wouldbegoods (1901), Five Children and It (1902), The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904), and The Railway Children (1906); Kipling's Kim (1901), Just So Stories (1902), Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) and its sequel Rewards and Fairies (1910); J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, who appeared in various textual incarnations, beginning with The Little White Bird in 1902; Hilaire Belloc's satirical verse collected in Cautionary Tales for Children (1907); Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess (1905) and The Secret Garden, which first appeared in serialisation in 1910; Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows (1908), which (alongside Hodgson Burnett's works) quickly established itself as a standard text for children; John Buchan's updating of the imperial romance, Prester John (1910); and finally, two bestselling works of non-fiction, H. E. Marshall's popular history of England Our Island Story (1905), and Robert Baden-Powell's Scout movement manifesto, Scouting for Boys (1908). These writers and texts appeared at a time when many of the giants of Victorian children's literature had recently died, leaving the field open for new and distinctive work; notably G. A. Henty (died 1902), arguably the most popular boys’ author of his era; Kate Greenaway (1901), an enormously influential illustrator of books for younger children; and George MacDonald (1905), a pioneering writer of Victorian fantasy literature. As well as benefiting from this departure of the old guard, Edwardian writers also had at their disposal a new range of technical and stylistic innovations, upon which they could draw to inflect the look and often the feel of their work.
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- Information
- Literature of the 1900sThe Great Edwardian Emporium, pp. 83 - 110Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2017