Ventures into Childland: Victorians, Fairy Tales, and Femininity

by U.C. Knoepflmacher

Behind the innocent face of Victorian fairy tales such as Through the Looking Glass or Mopsa the Fairy lurks the specter of an intense gender debate about the very nature of childhood. Offering brilliant rereadings of classics from the "Golden Age of Children's Literature" as well as literature commonly considered "grown-up," U. C. Knoepflmacher illuminates this debate, probing deeply into the relations between adults and children, adults and their own childhood selves, and the lives of beloved Victorian authors and their "children's tales." Ventures into Childland will delight and instruct all readers of children's classics, and will be essential reading for students of Victorian culture and gender studies.

" Ventures into Childland is acute, well written and stimulating. It also has a political purpose, to insist on the importance of protecting and nurturing children, imaginatively and physically."—Jan Marsh, Times Literary Supplement

"A provocative and interesting book about Victorian culture."— Library Journal

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Essays, Lit Crit

444 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Tori]

U.C. Knoepflmacher, in addition to having hilarious initials, has a relatively insightful perspective on literature. I appreciate his situating the texts he analyzes in historical and biographical context, and his self-consciousness as a literary critic in conversation with other critics (notably his friend James Kincaid...). Yet I could've done without so much insight into Knoepflmacher's personal life. And I admit to having skimmed the chapters about texts I hadn't read. Which was kind of most of them. Other than some Rosetti and Carroll. And MacDonald, I think.

I couldn't tell if Knoepflmacher didn't have a strong conclusion, or if I just couldn't follow what he was concluding because I hadn't read so much of the evidence for the conclusion...


I would recommend to:
scholars of Victorian children's literature

[Jiang Yuqi]

I appreciate author's effort to link many children's literature authors in the same period together for exploring the development of feminity in their writings. However, there're two fatal setbacks: 1) the author analyzes an author's work and a certain development stage in each chapter by mainly focusing on one single work of that author and occasionally referring to other works. This selectivity is problematic, especially for authors with long and complicated literary careers. 2) Too much biographical readings undermine the driving force of textual analysis, instead of enhancing it.

[Madly Jane]

I can't believe the reviews I see on this book here. I mean, Jan Marsh gave a wonderful blurb for this book and she is one of the best female scholars working on this kind of Victorian fiction for children. Let's just put it this way—This book is essential reading for the Victorian scholars who are working in fairy tales and fantasy stories, especially those written for children. Since I am a teacher and my focus is at-risk and then highly gifted children, I found this book acute and needed for my collection. Enough said.

[Annabel]

I did enjoy this book, particularly the thoroughly in-depth analysis of the childrens texts (although I must say, I learnt very little that I wasn't already aware of) There were also a lot of anecdotes about the authors and their lives, which in some cases were relevant, and in others not so much.

I didn't really like the overly-friendly and personal tone of the book, but it was not a huge problem.

Overall, this would work well as a book to read from cover-to-cover, but not so much as a flick through for strong critical analysis.