Nineteenth-Century Fictions of Childhood and the Politics of Play (Studies in Childhood, 1700 to the Present)

Description

Drawing evidence from transatlantic literary texts of childhood as well as from nineteenth and early twentieth century children’s and family card, board, and parlor games and games manuals, Nineteenth-Century Fictions of Childhood and the Politics of Play aims to reveal what might be thought of as "playful literary citizenship," or some of the motivations inherent in later nineteenth and early twentieth century Anglo-American play pursuits as they relate to interest in shaping citizens through investment in "good" literature. Tracing play, as a societal and historical construct, as it surfaces time and again in children’s literary texts as well as children’s literary texts as they surface time and again in situations and environments of children’s play, this book underscores how play and literature are consistently deployed in tandem in attempts to create ideal citizens – even as those ideals varied greatly and were dependent on factors such as gender, ethnicity, colonial status, and class. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of figures Acknowledgments Introduction: Playful literary citizenship 1 Cultivating citizenship in the parlor: Transatlantic rivalries and respectability in nineteenth century board, card, and parlor games 2 Never and always a woman: Citizenship, croquet, and the nineteenth century growing girl 3 Citizenship on the world’s stage: Kipling’s novels of boyhood and the boy scouts 4 “‘Art for art’ is their motto”: A esthetic citizenship, children’s play, and class politics in the eyes and hands of Burnett and Nesbit Conclusion—“playing houses” : Citizenship, play, and domestic adventure in Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five series and the adventure playground movement Works cited Index