Overview

This book places children's literature at the forefront of early twentieth-century debates about national identity and class relations that were expressed through the pursuit of leisure. Focusing on stories about hiking, camping and sailing, this book offers a fresh insight into a popular period of modern British cultural and political history.

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9781137407429

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Reviews

This is a readable, well-researched, and remarkable re-reading of the inter-war years in British culture and children's literature. The hugely popular genres of 'camping and tramping' novels not previously researched in such detail and family sailing stories are linked to radical interpretations of landscape and of the British maritime tradition. The result is a fresh and original linking of key, but often unconsidered, cultural elements which provides a new and often disturbing perspective on what has been seen as a quietist period in children's literature, and a retreatist historical period generally. This is literary-cultural investigation at its best. - Peter Hunt, Cardiff University, UK

'This is a readable, well-researched, and remarkable re-reading of the inter-war years in British culture and children's literature. The hugely popular genres of 'camping and tramping' novels - not previously researched in such detail - and family sailing stories are linked to radical interpretations of landscape and of the British maritime tradition. The result is a fresh and original linking of key, but often unconsidered, cultural elements which provides a new and often disturbing perspective on what has been seen as a quietist period in children's literature, and a retreatist historical period generally. This is literary-cultural investigation at its best.' - Peter Hunt, Cardiff University, UK

Author Information

Hazel Sheeky Bird is an independent researcher based in California, USA. She has published on the subject of escapism in Tolkien's The Hobbit and on the influence of high navalism in British and American naval stories. Her forthcoming publications examine British navalist propaganda and children's culture between 1890 and 1914.

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