nineteenth-century children's literature and the myth of the domestic ideal /
First Statement of Responsibility
Elizabeth Thiel.
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.
New York :
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
Routledge,
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
2008.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item
xiii, 199 pages :
Other Physical Details
illustrations ;
Dimensions
24 cm.
SERIES
Series Title
Children's literature and culture
INTERNAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES/INDEXES NOTE
Text of Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 187-192) and index.
CONTENTS NOTE
Text of Note
Redefining the past -- Snatched from "the seed-plot" of degeneracy : the "rescue" of the destitute child in tales of street-arab life -- Forever cursed : stepmothers, "otherness," and the reinscription of myth in transnormative family narratives -- "Uncles are one thing ... [but] aunts are always nasty!" Relational failures and the discourse of gender bias in foster family stories -- Mother, ally, friend, or foe? The "dependable" female author as one of the family -- Into the future : the enduring potency of the nineteenth-century ideal.
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SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
The myth of the Victorian family remains a pervasive influence within a contemporary Britain that perceives itself to be in social crisis. Nostalgic for a golden age of Victorian values in which visions of supportive, united families predominate, the common consciousness, exhorted by social and political discourse, continues to vaunt the traditional, natural family as the template by which all other family forms are gauged. Yet this fantasy of family, nurtured and augmented throughout the Victorian era, was essentially a construct that belied the realities of a nineteenth-century world in which orphanhood, fostering and stepfamilies were endemic.
TOPICAL NAME USED AS SUBJECT
Children's stories, English-- History and criticism.
Domestic relations in literature.
English fiction-- 19th century-- History and criticism.
Families in literature.
Home in literature.
Idealism in literature.
Literature and society-- Great Britain-- History-- 19th century.