Pasts at play: Childhood encounters with history in British culture, 1750–1914 (Interventions: Rethinking the Nineteenth Century) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1526171821 ISBN 13: 9781526171825

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 2023

Synopsis

This collection brings together scholars from disciplines including Children’s Literature, Classics, and History to develop fresh approaches to children’s culture and the uses of the past. It charts the significance of historical episodes and characters during the long nineteenth-century (1750-1914), a critical period in children's culture. Boys and girls across social classes often experienced different pasts simultaneously, for purposes of amusement and instruction. The book highlights an active and shifting market in history for children, and reveals how children were actively involved in consuming and repackaging the past: from playing with historically themed toys and games to performing in plays and pageants. Each chapter reconstructs encounters across different media, uncovering the cultural work done by particular pasts and exposing the key role of playfulness in the British historical imagination.

About this title

About the Author

Rachel Bryant Davies is a Lecturer in Comparative Literature at Queen Mary University of London
Barbara Gribling is a Visiting Researcher in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics at Newcastle University

From the Back Cover

Pasts at play examines British children in the late Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian eras as active consumers of a variety of pasts, from the biblical and classical to the medieval and early modern. This period, 1750–1914, saw crucial developments in children’s culture and historical education, as children became target consumers for publishers. Boys and girls across the social classes often experienced multiple pasts simultaneously for the
purpose of amusement and instruction. Their encounters were interactive, imaginative and, above all, playful.

This interdisciplinary collection brings together new approaches to childhood culture and the dynamic role of play within that culture. Specialists in Classics, English and History reconstruct children’s encounters with different media to uncover the cultural work done by particular pasts and expose the key role of playfulness in the British historical imagination. Together, these ten studies explore the diverse range of media, and of pasts, that were marketed to children that are essential to fully understand the significance of children’s interactions with the past. Analysing sources ranging from games to guide-books and puzzles to pageants, contributors develop fresh approaches to children’s culture and the uses of the past. This book will be valuable for researchers and students interested in the afterlives of the past, the history of education and child consumerism and interaction.

Edition details

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1526171821
• ISBN 13: 9781526171825
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272
• Editor: Davies Rachel Bryant, Gribling Barbara