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Historical Studies

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Teaching Children’s Fiction

Part of the book series: Teaching the New English ((TENEEN))

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Abstract

It was by no means self-evident to the dignatories of the nineteenth-century universities that the study of modern literature was a worthwhile intellectual pursuit. The evolution of historical studies of English literature as such took some time to be “rescued” from gentleman-amateurs who presented lists of books and writers they enjoyed to a somewhat dilettante audience.1 Even when scholarly histories of English literature began to appear, there was little place in them for books aimed at a child audience, apart from their inevitable mention of the trio of books with implied adult audiences which had subsequently become significant in the development of children’s literature: Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, and Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. It is unsurprising therefore that the study of the history of children’s literature as such should be a discipline still more recent in its evolution.

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  • Ariès, Philippe. Centuries of Childhood. Trans. R. Baldick. London: Jonathan Cape, 1962.

    Google Scholar 

  • Avery, Gillian, and Julia Briggs. Children and their Books: A Celebration of the Work of Iona and Peter Opie. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bratton, Jacqueline S. The Impact of Victorian Children’s Fiction. London: Croom Helm, 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cadogan, Mary, and Patricia Craig. You’re a Brick, Angela! The Girls’ Story 1839–1975. London: Gollancz, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carpenter, Humphrey. Secret Gardens: The Golden Age of Children’s Literature. London: Unwin, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coveney, Peter. The Image of Childhood. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967.

    Google Scholar 

  • Darton, F. J. Harvey. Children’s Books in England: Five Centuries of Social Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunt, Peter. Children’s Literature: An Illustrated History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, Mary V. Engines of Instruction, Mischief, and Magic: Children’s Literature in England from its Beginnings to 1839. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

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    Google Scholar 

  • Townsend, John Rowe. Written for Children: 25th Anniversary Edition. London: Bodley Head, 1990. [Earlier editions of this book remain of considerable interest in this area.]

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    Google Scholar 

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Authors
  1. Pat Pinsent
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

    Catherine Butler (Senior Lecturer) (Senior Lecturer)

Copyright information

© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Pinsent, P. (2006). Historical Studies. In: Butler, C. (eds) Teaching Children’s Fiction. Teaching the New English. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230379404_2

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