Pasts at play: Childhood encounters with history in British culture, 1750–1914

Description

This collection brings together scholars from disciplines including Children’s Literature, Classics, and History to develop fresh approaches to children’s culture and the uses of the past. It charts the significance of historical episodes and characters during the long nineteenth-century (1750-1914), a critical period in children's culture. Boys and girls across social classes often experienced different pasts simultaneously, for purposes of amusement and instruction. The book highlights an active and shifting market in history for children, and reveals how children were actively involved in consuming and repackaging the past: from playing with historically themed toys and games to performing in plays and pageants. Each chapter reconstructs encounters across different media, uncovering the cultural work done by particular pasts and exposing the key role of playfulness in the British historical imagination. Front matter Dedication Contents Figures Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction: pasts at play Part I: Biblical and archaeological pasts Noah’s Ark-aeology and nineteenth-century children Bringing Egypt home: children’s encounters with ancient Egypt in the long nineteenth century Part II: Classical pasts Didactic heroes: masculinity, sexuality and exploration in the Argonaut story of Kingsley’s The Heroes ‘Fun from the Classics’: puzzling antiquity in The Boy’s Own Paper Part III: Medieval and early modern pasts Youthful consumption and conservative visions: Robin Hood and Wat Tyler in late Victorian penny periodicals A tale of two ladies? Stuart women as role models for Victorian and Edwardian girls and young women Part IV: Revived pasts Tarry-at-home antiquarians: children’s ‘tour books’, 1740–1850 Playing with the past: child consumers, pedagogy and British history games, c. 1780–1850 Re-enacting local history in the Stepney Children’s Pageant, 1909 Appendix A: A list of ‘tour books’ Appendix B: A list of British history-themed toys and games Index