The Child Writer from Austen to Woolf

A collection of essays on the juvenilia of famous authors including Austen, the Brontës, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf.

Christine Alexander (Edited by), Juliet McMaster (Edited by)

9780521128384, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 4 February 2010

336 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.5 kg

Review of the hardback: '… a highly original volume of essays, which, in reconfiguring talented nineteenth-century children as voyeurs, spies and witnesses of the adult world, opens up considerably more than just the field of juvenilia for further research.' Journal of Victorian Culture

In this highly original collection leading scholars address the largely overlooked genre of childhood writings by major authors, and explore the genesis of genius. The book includes essays on the first writings of Jane Austen, Byron, Elizabeth Barrett, Charlotte and Branwell Brontë, Louisa May Alcott, George Eliot, John Ruskin, Lewis Carroll and Virginia Woolf. All began writing for pleasure as children, and later developed their professional ambitions. In bursts of creative energy, these young authors, as well as those like Daisy Ashford, who wrote only as a child, produced prose, verse, imitation and parody, wild romance and down-to-earth daily records. Their juvenile writings are fascinating both in themselves, and for the promise of greater works to come. The volume includes an invaluable and thorough annotated bibliography of juvenilia, and will stimulate many directions for research in this lively and fascinating topic.

Part I. Childhood Writings: 1. Introduction Christine Alexander and Juliet McMaster
2. Nineteenth-century juvenilia: a survey Christine Alexander
3. Play and apprenticeship: the culture of family magazines Christine Alexander
4. What Daisy knew: the epistemology of the child writer Juliet McMaster
5. Defining and representing literary juvenilia Christine Alexander
Part II. Individual Authors: 6. Jane Austen, that disconcerting 'Child' Margaret Doody
7. Endless imitation: Austen's and Byron's juvenilia Rachel Brownstein
8. Childhood writings of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Beverly Taylor
9. Autobiography and juvenilia: the fractured self in Charlotte Brontë's early manuscripts Christine Alexander
10. The child is parent to the author: Branwell Brontë Victor Neufeldt
11. Choosing a model: George Eliot's 'Prentice Hand' Juliet McMaster
12. Precocity and the economy of the evangelical self in John Ruskin's juvenilia David C. Hanson
13. Louisa May Alcott's juvenilia Daniel Shealy
14. Dr Arnold's granddaughter: Mary Augusta Ward Gillian Boughton
15. New woman, new boots: Amy Levy as child journalist Naomi Hetherington
16. An annotated bibliography of nineteenth-century juvenilia Lesley Peterson and Leslie Robertson.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]