Overview
- Explores children’s literature as seen through popular zoology and palaeontology
- Offers a unique viewpoint on the construction of science in the long nineteenth century
- Investigates ways children’s literature of the period reflected imperial culture
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature (PSAAL)
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
Animals, Museum Culture and Children’s Literature in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Curious Beasties explores the relationship between the zoological and palaeontological specimens brought back from around the world in the long nineteenth century—be they alive, stuffed or fossilised—and the development of children’s literature at this time. Children’s literature emerged as dizzying numbers of new species flooded into Britain with scientific expeditions, from giraffes and hippopotami to kangaroos, wombats, platypuses or sloths. As the book argues, late Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian children’s writers took part in the urge for mass education and presented the world and its curious creatures to children, often borrowing from their museum culture and its objects to map out that world. This original exploration illuminates how children’s literature dealt with the new ordering of the world, offering a unique viewpoint on the construction of science in the long nineteenth century.
Reviews
“This book is a meticulously researched and chronicled study of the role played by zoos and museums in nineteenth-century children’s literature and culture. Victorian delight in the new, the old and the bizarre is amply displayed in Talairach’s study. Whether caged, taxidermied, catalogued, reconstituted or fabricated, animals served as a domain of knowledge, an opportunity for whimsy and a simulacrum of Empire.” (Naomi J. Wood, Professor of English, Kansas State University, USA)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Laurence Talairach is Professor of English at the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès and Associate Researcher at the Alexandre Koyré Centre for the History of Science and Technology, France. Her research specialises in the interrelations between nineteenth-century literature, medicine and science.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Animals, Museum Culture and Children’s Literature in Nineteenth-Century Britain
Book Subtitle: Curious Beasties
Authors: Laurence Talairach
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72527-3
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-72526-6Published: 28 May 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-72529-7Published: 29 May 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-72527-3Published: 27 May 2021
Series ISSN: 2634-6338
Series E-ISSN: 2634-6346
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 309
Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations, 3 illustrations in colour
Topics: Literary Theory, Nineteenth-Century Literature, Children's Literature, Veterinary Medicine/Veterinary Science, History of Science, Audio-Visual Culture