Introduction

Abstract

Peter Pan offers us the child — for ever. It gives us the child, but it does not speak to the child. In fact so rarely has it spoken to the child throughout its history, that it led me to ask whether there might not be some relation between this all-too-perfect presence of the child and a set of problems, or evasions, in the very concept of children’s fiction itself. Children’s fiction rests on the idea that there is a child who is simply there to be addressed and that speaking to it might be simple. It is an idea whose innocent generality covers up a multitude of sins. This book will attempt to trace the fantasy which lies behind the concept of children’s fiction, and will base its case on Peter Pan.