Table Of ContentHISTORY AND THE CONSTRUCTION
OF THE CHILD IN EARLY BRITISH
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
How did the “flat” characters of eighteenth-century children’s literature become
“round” by the mid-nineteenth? While previous critics have pointed to literary
Romanticism for an explanation, Jackie C. Horne argues that this shift can be
better understood by looking to the discipline of history. Eighteenth-century
humanism believed the purpose of history was to teach private and public virtue;
by creating idealized readers to emulate. Eighteenth-century children’s literature,
with its impossibly perfect protagonists (and its equally imperfect villains) echoes
history’s exemplar goals.
Exemplar history, however, came under increasing pressure during the period, and
the resulting changes in historiographical practice—an increased need for reader
engagement and the widening of history’s purview to include the morals, manners,
and material lives of everyday people—find their mirror in changes in fiction for
children. Horne situates hitherto neglected robinsonnades, historical novels, and
fictionalized histories within the cultural, social, and political contexts of the period
to trace the ways in which idealized characters gradually gave way to protagonists
who fostered readers’ sympathetic engagement. Horne’s study will be of intere st to
specialists in children’s literature, the history of education, and book history.
Ashgate Studies in Childhood,
1700 to the Present
Series Editor: Claudia Nelson, Texas A&M University, USA
This series recognizes and supports innovative work on the child and on literature
for children and adolescents that informs teaching and engages with current
and emerging debates in the field. Proposals are welcome for interdisciplinary
and comparative studies by humanities scholars working in a variety of fields,
including literature; book history, periodicals history, and print culture and the
sociology of texts; theater, film, musicology, and performance studies; history,
including the history of education; gender studies; art history and visual culture;
cultural studies; and religion.
Topics might include, among other possibilities, how concepts and
representations of the child have changed in response to adult concerns; postcolonial
and transnational perspectives; “domestic imperialism” and the acculturation
of the young within and across class and ethnic lines; the commercialization of
childhood and children’s bodies; views of young people as consumers and/or
originators of culture; the child and religious discourse; children’s and adolescents’
self-representations; and adults’ recollections of childhood.
Also in the series
The Writings of Hesba Stretton
Reclaiming the Outcast
Elaine Lomax
Public School Literature, Civic Education and the
Politics of Male Adolescence
Jenny Holt
The Nineteenth-Century Child and Consumer Culture
Dennis Denisoff
Conceptualizing Cruelty to Children in Nineteenth-Century England
Literature, Representation, and the NSPCC
Monica Flegel
History and the
Construction of the Child
in Early British
Children’s Literature
JACkiE C. HoRnE
First published 2011 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © 2011 Jackie C. Horne
Jackie C. Horne has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988,
to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Horne, Jackie C., 1965–
History and the construction of the child in early British children’s literature. – (Ashgate
studies in childhood, 1700 to the present)
1. Children’s literature – 18th century – History and criticism. 2. Children’s literature
– 19th century – History and criticism. 3. Children’s stories, English – History and
criticism. 4. English fiction – 18th century – History and criticism. 5. English fiction –
19th century – History and criticism. 6. Literature and society – Great Britain – History
– 18th century. 7. Literature and society – Great Britain – History – 19th century.
8. Didactic fiction, English – History and criticism.
i. Title ii. Series
823.5’099282–dc22
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Horne, Jackie C., 1965–
History and the construction of the child in early British children’s literature / by Jackie
C. Horne.
p. cm. — (Ashgate studies in childhood, 1700 to the present)
includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Children’s stories, English—History and criticism. 2. Children—Books and reading—
Great Britain—History—17th century. 3. Children in literature. i. Title.
PR830.C513H67 2011
823’.08729099282—dc22
2011001047
iSBn 9781409407881 (hbk)
iSBn 9781315586885 (ebk)
To Keith, for love and a library card
This page has been left blank intentionally
Contents
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgements xiii
introduction: Setting off on an Exemplary Adventure 1
1 The Emergence of the ordinary: Parents and Children
on the Deserted isle 29
2 The Failure of the ordinary: The Function of Death
in the Family Robinsonade 93
3 Engaging The ordinary Reader: Fictionalized History
for Children 127
4 “Men in Petticoats” and Girls in Pants: Contesting
ordinary Femininity in Historical Fiction for Girls 187
Epilogue: The End of an Adventure? 239
Works Cited 247
Index 261
This page has been left blank intentionally
List of Figures
1.1 “The first family robinsonade”: the Swiss Family Robinson
on the point of shipwreck. Henry Courbauld, designer;
Samuel Springsguth, engraver. Engraved frontispiece to
The Family Robinson Crusoe: or, Journal of a Father
Shipwrecked, with his Wife and Children, on an Uninhabited
Island. Translated from the German of M. Wiss. London:
M.J. Godwin, 1814. Courtesy of the UCLA Charles E. Young
Research Library Department of Special Collections. 35
1.2 “Felix thanks God for bringing him Tommy, a child to mother.”
Lemercier, engraver. “Soyez béni, m’écriai-je, Dieu bon,
Dieu tout puissant! Rendez-moi digne du présent, si doux
que vous me faites.” illustration from [Jeanne Sylvie Mallès
de Beaulieu], Le Robinson de Douze Ans: Histoire Intérresant
d’un Jeune Mousse Français Abandonné dans une Ile Déserte.
This lithograph, engraved and printed in two colors, is from
the vingtiéme edition (1855) published for the Librarie
de l’enfance et de la Jeunesse by P.C. Lehuby, Paris.
Courtesy of the UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library
Department of Special Collections. 57
1.3 “Charles and Mr Crusoe give thanks to God for reuniting
father and son.” [Stephen Henry] Gimber, designer and engraver.
Title page engraving for Barbara Hofland’s The Young Crusoe.
Boys and Girls Library No. 12. new York: J. & J. Harper, 1833.
Courtesy of the author. 73
1.4 This illustration of the opening scene presents a calm,
contained Mr Howard, hardly a father wracked by
“the deepest despondency” described by the text. [J.W.] orr.
illustration from Leila, or The Island. Boston: Crosby,
nichols, Lee and Co. 1861. Courtesy of the author. 83
2.1 “Mischievous Tommy frolics with his sister while the rest of
the Seagrave party looks anxiously toward a possible rescue ship.”
Gordon, engraver. Engraved frontispiece from volume 2 of
Frederick Marryat’s Masterman Ready; or, The Wreck of the
Pacific. new York: Appleton, 1853. Courtesy of the author. 102
