Children's Fantasy Literature
An Introduction

A comprehensive study of children's fantasy literature across the English-speaking world, from the sixteenth century to the present.

Michael Levy (Author), Farah Mendlesohn (Author)

9781107610293, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 April 2016

282 pages
22.7 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.41 kg

'Sharing their extensive knowledge of the topic, Michael Levy and Farah Mendlesohn have made a relevant contribution to the study of this field with their monograph Children's Fantasy Literature: An Introduction. Published in 2016 by Cambridge University Press, the book is a result of the continuing collaboration of the authors, their colleagues, and students … Levy and Mendlesohn have succeeded in finding a manner of expression which can easily be understood by scholars and experts, but also those whose knowledge of fantasy is not yet extensive.' Katarina Kralj, Libri & Liberi

Fantasy has been an important and much-loved part of children's literature for hundreds of years, yet relatively little has been written about it. Children's Fantasy Literature traces the development of the tradition of the children's fantastic - fictions specifically written for children and fictions appropriated by them - from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century, examining the work of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, C. S. Lewis, Roald Dahl, J. K. Rowling and others from across the English-speaking world. The volume considers changing views on both the nature of the child and on the appropriateness of fantasy for the child reader, the role of children's fantasy literature in helping to develop the imagination, and its complex interactions with issues of class, politics and gender. The text analyses hundreds of works of fiction, placing each in its appropriate context within the tradition of fantasy literature.

Introduction
1. How fantasy became children's literature
2. Fairies, ghouls and goblins: the realms of Victorian fancy
3. The American search for an American childhood
4. British and Empire fantasy between the wars
5. The changing landscape of post-war fantasy
6. Folklore, fantasy and indigenous fantasy
7. Middle-earth, medievalism and mythopoeic fantasy
8. Harry Potter and children's fantasy since the 1990s
9. Romancing the teen
Further reading.

Subject Areas: Classic fiction [Children's / Teenage YFA], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literary theory [DSA]