Scarecrow Press / Children's Literature Association
Pages: 304
•
Trim: 6 x 9
978-0-8108-5401-7 • Hardback • April 2006 • $98.00 • (£75.00)
978-1-4617-4225-8 • eBook • April 2006 • $93.00 • (£72.00)
Raymond E. Jones is a professor in the Department of English and Film Studies, the University of Alberta. He is author of Characters in Children's Literature (1997) and of articles on children's authors ranging from Maurice Sendak and Philippa Pearce to Monica Hughes and Michael Bedard. He is co-author, with Jon C. Stott, of Canadian Children's Books: A Guide to Authors and Illustrators (2000) and co-editor, with Jon C. Stott, of A World of Stories: Traditional Tales for Children (2006).
Part 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Chapter 1. The "It" Girl (and Boy): Ideologies of Gender in the Psammead Trilogy
Chapter 3 Chapter 2. A Momentary Hunger: Fabianism and Didacticism in E. Nesbit's Writing for Children
Chapter 4 Chapter 3. The Beginning of the End: Writing Empire in E. Nesbit's Psammead Books
Chapter 5 Chapter 4. Generic Manipulation and Mutation: E. Nesbit's Psammead Series as Early Magical Realism
Chapter 6 Chapter 5. Materiality, the Wish, and the Marvelous: E. Nesbit's Comic Spirituality in the Psammead Trilogy
Chapter 7 Chapter 6. Communicating Humor in E. Nesbit's Fantasy Trilogy
Chapter 8 Chapter 7. Where It Was, There Shall Five Children Be: Staging Desire in Five Children and It
Chapter 9 Chapter 8. Textual Building Blocks: Charles Dickens and E. Nesbit's Literary Borrowings in Five Children and It
Chapter 10 Chapter 9. Five Children and It: Some Parallels with the Nineteenth-Century Moral Tale
Chapter 11 Chapter 10. News from E. Nesbit: The Story of the Amulet and the Socialist Utopia
Chapter 12 Chapter 11. The Amulet and Other Stories of Time
Chapter 13 Chapter 12. "Exactly As It Was"? H.R. Millar's Expansions and Subversions of the Psammead Trilogy
Chapter 14 Chapter 13. Only Half Magic: Edward Eager's Revision of Nesbit's Psammead Trilogy
Part 15 About the Editor and Contributors
...the collection offers an enticing array of shifting perspectives...The pleasure of these essays lies not only in their individual arguments but also in the way they creatively challenge and complement each other, demonstrating the vitality of contemporary Nesbit criticism.
— Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 2 (2007)
a most admirable and timely volume.
— English Literature and Translation
Nesbit's works of fantasy nestle on many a child's bookshelf, and in this trilogy three of them reside: Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet, and The Story of the Amulet. In this collection of 13 essays scholars peek behind the fantasy and find plenty, including such topics as the ideologies of gender in the Psammead Trilogy, Fabianism and didacticism, the writing of empire, magical realism in the form of generic manipulation and mutation, comic spirituality and communicating humor, staging desire in Five Children and It, Nesbit's and Dickens's literary borrowings, parallels with the nineteenth-century moral tale, socialist utopia in The Story of the Amulet, H.R. Millar's expansions and subversions of the trilogy, and Edgar Eager's revisions.
— Reference and Research Book News, August 2006