Breaking the Angelic Image: Woman Power in Victorian Children's Fantasy Contributor(s): Honig, Edith Lazaros (Author), Lazaros Honig, Edith (Author) |
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ISBN: 031326127X ISBN-13: 9780313261275 Publisher: Praeger OUR PRICE: $74.25 Product Type: Hardcover Published: October 1988 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Children's & Young Adult Literature - Literary Criticism | Women Authors - Literary Criticism | Science Fiction & Fantasy |
Dewey: 823.809 |
LCCN: 88003092 |
Series: Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction & Fantasy |
Physical Information: 0.44" H x 5.5" W x 8.5" (0.75 lbs) 168 pages |
Themes: - Sex & Gender - Feminine |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Honig's short, pleasantly written book is a consideration of the images of women--as mothers, spinsters, girls, and supernatural women--in 19th-and early 20th-century fantasy novels for children. . . . Honig sees fantasy as a means of freeing women from the Victorian social restraints--at first, imaginatively. Choice This is the first book-length study of nineteenth-century children's fantasy from a feminist viewpoint. Honig focuses on a number of major works that are representative of the best of their era--including such classics as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll; The Golden Key, The Princess and the Goblin, and others by George MacDonald; the works of Mary Louisa Molesworth; Peter and Wendy by James Barrie; The Five Children and Itand The Enchanted Castle by Edith Nesbit. Through a close reading of these fantasies Honig demonstrates that although Victorian women were still being repressed in the home and the marketplace, the female figure in literature played a role that was quite different from the traditional stereotype of the meek, submissive wife and mother. |