Alice to the Lighthouse: Children’s Books and Radical Experiments in Art

374 Pages·1999·40.1 MB·English

by  Juliet Dusinberre (auth.)

ALICE TO THE LIGHTHOUSE
Also by Juliet Dusinberre and from the same publishers
SHAKESPEARE AND THE NATURE OF WOMEN
VIRGINIA WOOLF'S RENAISSANCE: Woman Reader or
Common Reader?
Alice to the Lighthouse
Children's Books and Radical
Experiments in Art
Juliet Dusinberre
M. C. Bradbrook Fellow in English
Girton College
Cambridge
Published in Great Britain by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-333-65850-5 ISBN 978-1-349-27357-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-27357-7
Published in the United States of America by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-22057-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dusinberre, Juliet.
Alice to the lighthouse: children's books and radical experiments
in art / Juliet Dusinberre.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-22057-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
I. Children's literature, English-History and criticism.
2. English literature-20th century-History and criticism.
3. Children's literature, American-History and criticism.
4. American literature-20th century-History and criticism.
5. Children-Books and reading-History-2Oth century.
6. Literature, Experimental-History and criticism. 7. Woolf,
Virginia, 1882-1941-Technique. 8. CarrolI, Lewis, 1832-1898-
-Influence. I. Title.
PR990.D87 1999
820.9·9282·09~c21 98-44053
CIP
© Juliet Dusinberre 1987, 1999
First published 1987
Reissued (with alterations) 1999
AlI rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with
written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by
the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fulIy managed and
sustained forest sources.
109876543 2 I
08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99
For Edward and Martin
'I will plant a lighthouse here, a
head of Sweet Alice.'
Virginia Woolf, The Waves
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements xi
Preface to the 1999 Reissue xv
1 Children's Books, Childhood and Modernism 1
I Classifying the Child 5
II Childhood and Phenomenology 10
III Educating the Parent 15
IV Children and Post-Impressionist Painting 22
V Child Sexuality 28
VI The Child and her Book 34
2 The Voice of the Author 41
I Piety, Improvement and Protest 41
II The Burden of Instruction 51
III Author, Parent, Preacher 63
3 Virginia Woolf and the Irreverent Generation 69
I Lewis Carroll 69
II Accomplices: Writer and Reader 74
III Egotistic Author 80
IV Rebels 87
V Eminent Victorians 94
VI Sacred Texts 106
4 Death 111
I Death-Bed Scenes 111
II Children and Death 123
III Mrs Ramsay's Brackets 138
vii
viii Contents
5 The Medium of Art 151
I Language 151
II Form 172
6 Making Space for a Child 187
I 'What is Reality?' 187
II Time-Travel and Territory 196
III Psychoanalysis and Conscience 206
IV Narrative and Power 213
7 The Literary and the Literal 220
I Places 220
II Pioneers 236
III Design and Vision 252
IV Solidity and Thin Paint 265
Notes 279
Select Bibliography 324
Index 336
List of Illustrations
1 The White Knight (frontispiece to Through the
Looking-Glass) 3
2 Children and animals: (a) Alice and the Fawn (from
Through the Looking-Glass); (b) Heidi and a Goat
(from Heidi, by Johanna Spyri) 9
3 Mary Ellen and the Scissors with which She was
Beaten (from G. H. Payne, The Child in Human
Progress) 21
4 George Price, cartoon: 'You are silent. ... ' (from
George Melly and J. R. Glaves-Smith, A Child of Six
Could Do It) 23
5 Our Decadents (Punch, July 1894; from George
Melly and J. R. Glaves-Smith, A Child of Six Could
~m ~
6 Looking-Glass House (from Through the Looking-
Glass) 95
7 Death of Froggy's Mother (from Brenda, Froggy's
Little Brother, 1875) 114
8 Mrs Blackamoor's Grave (from Margaret GaUy,
Aunt Sally's Life, 1865) 127
9 'It Made Her Look Spidery' (from The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn) 135
10 Mr and Mrs Leslie Stephen and Virginia (from
Stella Duckworth's Photograph Album, Berg
Collection) 149
11 Kew Gardens (decorated by Vanessa Bell, 1927) 175
12 At the easel: Virginia, Vanessa, Thoby and Adrian
Stephen (from Stella Duckworth's Photograph
Album, Berg Collection) 178
13 Virginia Woolf, holograph draft of the end of The
Waves (Berg Collection) 185
14 Illustration from Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's
Garden of Verses (illustrated by Charles Robinson,
1896) 189
IX