Dennis Butts, a former Chairman of The Children's Books History Society, taught children's literature at Reading University. He has a lifelong interest in the relationship between politics, society and literature, and has written on many aspects of children's books and nineteenth-century literature. He co-edited From the Dairyman's Daughter to Worrals of the WAAF, also published by The Lutterworth Press.

Butts is surely one of the pioneers of the discipline, helping to establish its academic credibility in the UK, at least, and involved in establishing the first MA in the subject at the University of Reading. This particular volume draws on his strengths as a critic and gives his individual voice room to shine through. [...] this is a fine collection of interconnected essays. Butts's range of reference is truly astounding - not only his first-hand knowledge of children's book (including obscure works) and the associated secondary criticism, but also of social and cultural theory, and of history. As ever, Butts wears his knowledge lightly, leavening his criticism with delightful asides and unexpected links.

• Introduction1. Barbara Hofl: The Moral Tale and the Industrial Revolution2. How Children's Literature Changed in the 1840s3. Muscular Christianity and the Adventure Story4. Conflicting Loyalties: Ideology and Form in the Tales of G.A. Henty5. Rider Haggard and the Pattern of Defeat6. Some Questions about Kidnapped: Stevenson and the Act of Union7. The Railway Children and the Strange Death of Liberal England8. From Evangelism to Feminism: The Works of Amy Le Feuvre9. Imperialists of the Air: Flying Stories 1900-195010. The Retreatism of the 1930s: A Few Dissenters11. Anarchy, Didacticism and Politics: The 1970s and the 1990s12. The Historical Novels of Philip PullmanChapter NotesSelect BibliographyIndex

Dennis Butts, a former Chairman of The Children's Books History Society, taught children's literature at Reading University. He has a lifelong interest in the relationship between politics, society and literature, and has written on many aspects of children's books and nineteenth-century literature. He co-edited From the Dairyman's Daughter to Worrals of the WAAF, also published by The Lutterworth Press.

Butts is surely one of the pioneers of the discipline, helping to establish its academic credibility in the UK, at least, and involved in establishing the first MA in the subject at the University of Reading. This particular volume draws on his strengths as a critic and gives his individual voice room to shine through. [...] this is a fine collection of interconnected essays. Butts's range of reference is truly astounding - not only his first-hand knowledge of children's book (including obscure works) and the associated secondary criticism, but also of social and cultural theory, and of history. As ever, Butts wears his knowledge lightly, leavening his criticism with delightful asides and unexpected links.

• Introduction1. Barbara Hofl: The Moral Tale and the Industrial Revolution2. How Children's Literature Changed in the 1840s3. Muscular Christianity and the Adventure Story4. Conflicting Loyalties: Ideology and Form in the Tales of G.A. Henty5. Rider Haggard and the Pattern of Defeat6. Some Questions about Kidnapped: Stevenson and the Act of Union7. The Railway Children and the Strange Death of Liberal England8. From Evangelism to Feminism: The Works of Amy Le Feuvre9. Imperialists of the Air: Flying Stories 1900-195010. The Retreatism of the 1930s: A Few Dissenters11. Anarchy, Didacticism and Politics: The 1970s and the 1990s12. The Historical Novels of Philip PullmanChapter NotesSelect BibliographyIndex

Dennis Butts, a former Chairman of The Children's Books History Society, taught children's literature at Reading University. He has a lifelong interest in the relationship between politics, society and literature, and has written on many aspects of children's books and nineteenth-century literature. He co-edited From the Dairyman's Daughter to Worrals of the WAAF, also published by The Lutterworth Press.

Butts is surely one of the pioneers of the discipline, helping to establish its academic credibility in the UK, at least, and involved in establishing the first MA in the subject at the University of Reading. This particular volume draws on his strengths as a critic and gives his individual voice room to shine through. [...] this is a fine collection of interconnected essays. Butts's range of reference is truly astounding - not only his first-hand knowledge of children's book (including obscure works) and the associated secondary criticism, but also of social and cultural theory, and of history. As ever, Butts wears his knowledge lightly, leavening his criticism with delightful asides and unexpected links.

• Introduction1. Barbara Hofl: The Moral Tale and the Industrial Revolution2. How Children's Literature Changed in the 1840s3. Muscular Christianity and the Adventure Story4. Conflicting Loyalties: Ideology and Form in the Tales of G.A. Henty5. Rider Haggard and the Pattern of Defeat6. Some Questions about Kidnapped: Stevenson and the Act of Union7. The Railway Children and the Strange Death of Liberal England8. From Evangelism to Feminism: The Works of Amy Le Feuvre9. Imperialists of the Air: Flying Stories 1900-195010. The Retreatism of the 1930s: A Few Dissenters11. Anarchy, Didacticism and Politics: The 1970s and the 1990s12. The Historical Novels of Philip PullmanChapter NotesSelect BibliographyIndex