(Ebook) Juvenile literature and British society, 1850-1950: the age of adolescence by Charles Ferrall, Anna Jackson ISBN 9780203866108, 9780415964760, 020386610X, 0415964768

(Ebook) Juvenile literature and British society, 1850-1950: the age of adolescence by Charles Ferrall, Anna Jackson ISBN 9780203866108, 9780415964760, 020386610X, 0415964768

In this study, Charles Ferrall and Anna Jackson argue that the Victorians created a concept of adolescence that lasted into the twentieth century and yet is strikingly at odds with post-Second World War notions of adolescence as a period of "storm and stress." In the enormously popular "juvenile" literature of the period, primarily boys’ and girls’ own adventure and school stories, adolescence is acknowledged as a time of sexual awareness and yet also of a romantic idealism that is lost with marriage, a time when boys and girls acquire adult duties and responsibilities and yet have not had to assume the roles of breadwinner or household manager. The book reveals a concept of adolescence as significant as the Romantic cult of childhood that preceded it, which will be of interest to scholars of both children’s literature and Victorian culture.