The Promise of Happiness
Value and Meaning in Children's Fiction

Originally published in paperback in 1982, this is a study of the best children's fiction of the previous hundred years.

Fred Inglis (Author)

9780521270700, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 23 September 1982

348 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2 cm, 0.44 kg

Originally published in paperback in 1982, this book was written in answer to the question 'which books should our children read, and why?' It is a study of what is, in the author's opinion, the best children's fiction of the previous hundred years, and at the same time a study of the social values which that fiction celebrates and criticises. Fred Inglis concentrates on stories for children aged between nine and thirteen; he contrasts the kinds of delight and profit to be gained from classics ancient and modern, from the novels of Dickens and Lewis Carroll via those of Arthur Ransome and Tolkien to William Mayne, Ursula Leguin, Russell Hoban and Philippa Pearce, situating these books in the social context from which they came and relating them to the audience of adults who are expected to write, publish, judge and choose books for their children.

Part I. Theory and Experience: 1. The terms of reference
2. Looking back into the blank of my infancy
3. The history of children - little innocents and limbs of Satan
Part II. Texts and Contexts: The Old Books: 4. The lesser great tradition
5. Class and classic - the greatness of Arthur Ransome
6. Girl or boy: home and away
7. Let's be friends
8. Cult and culture: a political-psychological excursus
Part III. Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained: The New Work: 9. History absolves nobody - ritual and romance
10. Rumours of angels and spells in the suburbs
11. Experiments with time and notes on nostalgia
12. Love and death in children's novels
13. Resolution and independence
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]