Children's Literature and Capitalism

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Christopher Parkes

   Pages 1-10

3. Avoiding Dead Ends and Blind Alleys: Re-imagining Youth Employment in Nineteenth-Century Britain

   • Christopher Parkes

   Pages 11-41

4. Family Business and Childhood Experience: David Copperfield and Great Expectations

   • Christopher Parkes

   Pages 42-71

5. Adventure Fiction and the Youth Problem: Treasure Island and Kidnapped

   • Christopher Parkes

   Pages 72-100

6. Commercialism and Middle-Class Innocence: The Story of the Treasure Seekers and The Railway Children

   • Christopher Parkes

   Pages 101-129

7. Educational Tracking and the Feminized Classroom: A Little Princess and The Secret Garden

   • Christopher Parkes

   Pages 130-159

8. The Female Life History and the Labour Market: Anne of Green Gables and Anne’s House of Dreams

   • Christopher Parkes

   Pages 160-186

9. Conclusion

   • Christopher Parkes

   Pages 187-191

10. Back Matter

    Pages 192-215

    PDF

After the first phase of industrialization in Britain, the child emerged as both a victim of and a threat to capitalism. This book explores the changing relationship between the child and capitalist society in the works of some of the most important writers of children's and young-adult texts in the Victorian and Edwardian periods.

• Charles Dickens
• children''s literature
• English literature
• fiction
• Great Britain
• Robert Louis Stevenson
• society
• Victorian era
• British and Irish Literature

'...Parkes's book is an insightful contribution to the scholarship on youth and capitalism, which deserves more attention from the fields of children's literature and childhood studies' Troy Boone, Children's Literature Association Quarterly

CHRISTOPHER PARKES is associate professor in English Literature at Lakehead University, Canada. He is the author of scholarly articles on children's literature and eighteenth-century literature.

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