From Pan to Potter: 20th-century British children's literature

This course examines the development of British children’s literature in the 20th century. Our first text is Peter Pan, which comes at the end of the first ‘Golden Age’ of children’s literature, just before the First World War, and follows an illustrious line of children’s literature appearing from the 1860s onwards. We will move on to consider other epochal works of the 20th century, from the flowering of ‘childist’ voices in children’s writing to the world-conquering phenomena of the Harry Potter series in the 1990s. We will ask how authors have dealt with sensitive questions around the representation of difficult subject matter, including war, trauma, and sexuality, and the debates which continue to rage about what makes a ‘good’ book for children. Fantasy literature has come to dominate the field, but we will also consider works which propose a realist approach to fiction, and discuss the different uses to which fantasy has been put, by authors including CS Lewis and Philip Pullman.

What our students say

"Jenny provided great insights and detailed context and background on children's literature, demonstrating the development of the genre over time. She established all of the participants’ interests and used them in discussions."