The Works of Maria Edgeworth

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn Butler
Keyword(s):  
Maria Edgeworth

THE LOST WORLD OF MARIA EDGEWORTH

1974 ◽  
Vol XXIV (2) ◽  
pp. 198-207
Author(s):  
JOHN PRESTON
Keyword(s):  
Maria Edgeworth

The Innovative Animals of Children’s Fiction

2020 ◽  
pp. 74-108
Author(s):  
Jane Spencer
Keyword(s):  
William Blake ◽  
Mary Wollstonecraft ◽  
Maria Edgeworth ◽  
Animal Minds ◽  
Anna Letitia Barbauld ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Narrative Techniques ◽  
Children’S Fiction ◽  
Children's Fiction ◽  
Animal Subjectivity

This chapter discusses the animals of early children’s fiction, showing that their didactic and affective purposes are rooted in the period’s conception of childhood as a time of special closeness to animal being. Children’s writers teach children to grow away from animality, but also use animals to encourage the child reader’s sympathy. The fiction’s message of kindness to animals depends both on reminding children of feelings they share with nonhuman creatures and on explaining human superiority. The chapter argues that children’s writers make a distinct contribution to a developing literature of animal subjectivity. They make significant innovations in narrative techniques for representing nonhuman viewpoints, not only in their use of animal narrators but in third-person narrative access to non-linguistic animal minds. Writers include Dorothy Kilner, Thomas Day, Sarah Trimmer, Anna Letitia Barbauld, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Blake, Dorothy Wordsworth, Maria Edgeworth, and Edward Augustus Kendall.

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