Class, Leisure and National Identity in British Children's Literature, 1918-1950

Hazel Sheeky Bird is an independent researcher based in California, USA. She has published on the subject of escapism in Tolkien's The Hobbit and on the influence of high navalism in British and American naval stories. Her forthcoming publications examine British navalist propaganda and children's culture between 1890 and 1914.

"This is a readable, well-researched, and remarkable re-reading of the inter-war years in British culture and children's literature. The hugely popular genres of 'camping and tramping' novels not previously researched in such detail and family sailing stories are linked to radical interpretations of landscape and of the British maritime tradition. The result is a fresh and original linking of key, but often unconsidered, cultural elements which provides a new and often disturbing perspective on what has been seen as a quietist period in children's literature, and a retreatist historical period generally. This is literary-cultural investigation at its best." - Peter Hunt, Cardiff University, UK

• 1. Introduction 2. A Very Fuzzy Set-Defining Camping and Tramping Fiction 3. The Delights of the Open Road, Footloose and Fancy Free 4. Landscape and Tourism in the Camping and Tramping Countryside 5. Mapping the Geographical Imagination 6. The Family Sailing Story 7. England Expects: The Nelson Tradition and the Politics of Service in Naval Cadet and Family Sailing Stories 8. Conclusion: A Disappearing Act Appendix Notes Bibliography Index