Class, Leisure and National Identity in British Children’s Literature, 1918–1950

219 Pages·2014·0.676 MB·English

by  Hazel Sheeky Bird (auth.)

Class, Leisure and National
Identity in British Children’s
Literature, 1918–1950
Hazel Sheeky Bird
Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature
Series Editors: Kerry Mallan and Clare Bradford
Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature is an innovative series concerned
with the best contemporary scholarship and criticism on children’s and
young adult literature, film, and media texts. The series addresses new and
developing areas of children’s literature research as well as bringing contem-
porary perspectives to historical texts. The series has a distinctive take on
scholarship, delivering quality works of criticism written in an accessible style
for a range of readers, both academic and professional. The series is invalu-
able for undergraduate students in children’s literature as well as advanced
students and established scholars.
Titles include:
Cherie Allan
PLAYING WITH PICTURE BOOKS
Postmodern and the Postmodernesque
Clare Bradford, Kerry Mallan, John Stephens and Robyn McCallum
NEW WORLD ORDERS IN CONTEMPORARY CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
Alice Curry
ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS IN YOUNG ADULT FICTION
A Poetics of Earth
Helen A. Fairlie
REVALUING BRITISH BOYS’ STORY PAPERS, 1918–1939
Margaret Mackey
NARRATIVE PLEASURES IN YOUNG ADULT NOVELS, FILMS AND
VIDEO GAMES
Kerry Mallan
SECRETS, LIES AND CHILDREN’S FICTION
Andrew O’Malley
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE, POPULAR CULTURE AND ROBINSON CRUSOE
Christopher Parkes
CHILDREN’S LITEARTURE AND CAPITALISM
Fictions of Social Mobility in Britain, 1850–1914
Amy Ratelle
ANIMALITY AND CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AND FILM
Karen Sands-O’Connor and Marietta Frank
INTERNATIONALISM IN CHILDREN’S SERIES
Michelle Smith
EMPIRE IN BRITISH GIRLS’ LITERATURE AND CULTURE
Forthcoming titles:
Victoria Flanagan
TECHNOLOGY AND IDENTITY IN YOUNG ADULT FICTION
The Posthuman Subject
Mavis Reimer
SERIALITY AND TEXTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
The Compulsion to Repeat
Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature
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Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
Class, Leisure and
National Identity in
British Children’s
Literature, 1918–1950
Hazel Sheeky Bird
Independent scholar, UK
© Hazel Sheeky Bird 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-40742-9
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
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work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2014 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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ISBN 978-1-349-48816-2 ISBN 978-1-137-40743-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137407436
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For the Bully, with love
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Contents
Series Editors’ Preface viii
Acknowledgements ix
1 Introduction 1
2 A Very Fuzzy Set-Defining Camping and Tramping Fiction 16
3 The Delights of the Open Road, Footloose and Fancy Free 36
4 Landscape and Tourism in the Camping and Tramping
Countryside 59
5 Mapping the Geographical Imagination 87
6 The Family Sailing Story 113
7 England Expects: The Nelson Tradition and the Politics
of Service in Naval Cadet and Family Sailing Stories 129
8 Conclusion: A Disappearing Act 148
N otes 156
Bibliography 186
Index 202
vii
Series Editors’ Preface
The Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature series was initiated
in 2008 by Kerry Mallan and Clare Bradford. The aim of the series is
to identify and publish the best contemporary scholarship and criti-
cism on children’s and young adult literature, film, and media texts.
The series is open to theoretically informed scholarship covering a
wide range of critical perspectives on historical and contemporary
texts from diverse national and cultural settings. Critical Approaches
aims to make a significant contribution to the expanding field of
children’s literature research by publishing quality books that pro-
mote informed discussion and debate about the production and
reception of children’s literature and its criticism.
Kerry Mallan and Clare Bradford
viii
Acknowledgements
In writing this book I have incurred many obligations that I would
like to acknowledge here. Thanks go to Professor Matthew Grenby of
Newcastle University and Dr Nigel Rigby of the National Maritime
Museum. The time that I spent working in the National Maritime
Museum’s Caird library, partly through a Caird Fellowship, was a
particularly productive one and I am grateful to Dr Quintin Colville
for his advice on the culture of the Royal Navy and to Janet Norton
and Sally Archer for being supportive and welcoming during my time
at the museum.
A great number of people have read parts (and sometimes all) of
this book at various stages of its development. To that end I would
like to thank Victor Watson, Abi Garrington, Kate Wright, Anthony
Pavlik, Josephine Bird, Helen Stark, Simon Moore, James MacKenzie
and Katie Rees. James MacKenzie was particularly generous in terms
of his feedback and reading suggestions, both of which greatly ben-
efited my work on naval cadet stories. In preparing this book, two
people in particular have helped enormously. Peter Wright of the
Arthur Ransome Society has read and commented on many more
chapters than I could have hoped for and his knowledge of chil-
dren’s books (and Mercator’s Projection!) have helped me greatly.
Professor Peter Hunt kindly read a number of chapters and offered
much needed editorial advice. His support and encouragement
over the last two years has been invaluable. Likewise, Professor
Kimberley Reynolds’s friendship, encouragement and interest in
early t wentieth-century children’s literature continue to be a source
of support and inspiration.
My thanks go to Elinor Lyon’s estate for their permission to use
Lyon’s unpublished work ‘Island Adventures’ in this book. Lyon is a
greatly understudied writer and I am thankful for the opportunity to
write about her work here. While researching Lyon’s work the staff
at Seven Stories, the Centre for Children’s Books (Newcastle), were
accommodating in every way possible. My thanks go to Paula Wride
and Hannah Green, and to Kristopher McKie for his help in securing
permission to use Lyon’s archive.
ix