Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader, from picture books for the very young to young adult fiction .
187-585: The Secret Garden is a children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in book form in 1911, after serialisation in The American Magazine (November 1910 – August 1911). Set in England, it is seen as a classic of English children's literature. The American edition was published by the Frederick A. Stokes Company with illustrations by Maria Louise Kirk (signed as M. L. Kirk) and
374-404: A Peter Rabbit doll, making Peter the first licensed character . Michael O. Tunnell and James S. Jacobs, professors of children's literature at Brigham Young University, write, "Potter was the first to use pictures as well as words to tell the story, incorporating coloured illustration with text, page for page." Rudyard Kipling published The Jungle Book in 1894. A major theme in the book
561-486: A cholera epidemic kills Mary's parents, the few surviving servants flee the house without Mary. She is discovered by British soldiers who place her in the temporary care of an English clergyman, whose children taunt her by calling her " Mistress Mary, quite contrary ". She is soon sent to England to live with her uncle, Archibald Craven, whom her father's sister Lilias married. He lives on the Yorkshire Moors in
748-716: A courtesy book by the Dutch priest Erasmus . A Pretty and Splendid Maiden's Mirror , an adaptation of a German book for young women, became the first Swedish children's book upon its 1591 publication. Sweden published fables and a children's magazine by 1766. In Italy , Giovanni Francesco Straparola released The Facetious Nights of Straparola in the 1550s. Called the first European storybook to contain fairy-tales, it eventually had 75 separate stories and written for an adult audience. Giulio Cesare Croce also borrowed from some stories children enjoyed for his books. Russia 's earliest children's books, primers , appeared in
935-465: A Chinese Studio (published posthumously, 1766), which has been described by Yuken Fujita of Keio University as having "a reputation as the most outstanding short story collection." The fairy tale itself became popular among the précieuses of upper-class France (1690–1710), and among the tales told in that time were the ones of La Fontaine and the Contes of Charles Perrault (1697), who fixed
1122-529: A Land Baby , by Rev. Charles Kingsley (1862), which became extremely popular and remains a classic of British children's literature. In 1883, Carlo Collodi wrote the first Italian fantasy novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio , which was translated many times. In that same year, Emilio Salgari , the man who would become "the adventure writer par excellence for the young in Italy" first published his legendary character Sandokan . In Britain, The Princess and
1309-752: A Musical and Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Daisy Eagan as Mary, then eleven years old. In 2013, an opera by the American composer Nolan Gasser , which had been commissioned by the San Francisco Opera , was first performed at the Zellerbach Hall at the University of California, Berkeley . A stage play by Jessica Swale adapted from the novel was performed at Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre in Chester in 2014. In 2020,
1496-553: A TV movie adaptation of the novel in 1987 , which starred Gennie James as Mary, Barret Oliver as Dickon and Jadrien Steele as Colin. Billie Whitelaw appeared as Mrs Medlock and Derek Jacobi played the role of Archibald Craven, with Alison Doody appearing in flashbacks and visions as Lilias; Colin Firth made a brief appearance as the adult Colin Craven. The story was changed slightly. Colin's father, instead of being Mary's uncle,
1683-567: A brightly colored cover that appealed to children—something new in the publishing industry. Known as gift books, these early books became the precursors to the toy books popular in the nineteenth century. Newbery was also adept at marketing this new genre. According to the journal The Lion and the Unicorn , "Newbery's genius was in developing the fairly new product category, children's books, through his frequent advertisements... and his clever ploy of introducing additional titles and products into
1870-471: A different kind of story that spoke to both the romanticism and modernism of a new century". Burnett regarded The Secret Garden as her favorite novel, although she considered one of her novels for adults, In Connection with the DeWilloughby Claim , to be her Great American Novel . Tracing the book's revival from almost complete eclipse at the time of Burnett's death in 1924, Lundin notes that
2057-499: A fixed form, and regardless of literary influence, the tellers constantly altered them for their own purposes. The work of the Brothers Grimm influenced other collectors, both inspiring them to collect tales and leading them to similarly believe, in a spirit of romantic nationalism , that the fairy tales of a country were particularly representative of it, to the neglect of cross-cultural influence. Among those influenced were
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#17327909510502244-418: A folklore, Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index 300–749,—in a cataloguing system that made such a distinction—to gain a clear set of tales. His own analysis identified fairy tales by their plot elements, but that in itself has been criticized, as the analysis does not lend itself easily to tales that do not involve a quest , and furthermore, the same plot elements are found in non-fairy tale works. Were I asked, what
2431-526: A genre, Robinsonade ), adventure stories written specifically for children began in the nineteenth century. Early examples from British authors include Frederick Marryat 's The Children of the New Forest (1847) and Harriet Martineau 's The Peasant and the Prince (1856). The Victorian era saw the development of the genre, with W. H. G. Kingston , R. M. Ballantyne and G. A. Henty specializing in
2618-467: A knowledge of the letters; be taught to read, without perceiving it to be anything but a sport, and play themselves into that which others are whipp'd for." He also suggested that picture books be created for children. In the nineteenth century, a few children's titles became famous as classroom reading texts. Among these were the fables of Aesop and Jean de la Fontaine and Charles Perraults's 1697 Tales of Mother Goose . The popularity of these texts led to
2805-535: A large English country house , Misselthwaite Manor. When escorted to Misselthwaite by the housekeeper Mrs. Medlock, she discovers Lilias Craven is dead and that Mr. Craven is a hunchback . At first, Mary is as angry and contrary as she was before she was sent there. She dislikes her new home, the people living in it and, most of all, the bleak moor on which it sits. Over time, she becomes more spirited and less cantankerous and befriends her maid, Martha Sowerby, who tells Mary about Lilias Craven, who would spend hours in
2992-862: A literary variant of fairy tales such as Water and Salt and Cap O' Rushes . The tale itself resurfaced in Western literature in the 16th and 17th centuries, with The Facetious Nights of Straparola by Giovanni Francesco Straparola (Italy, 1550 and 1553), which contains many fairy tales in its inset tales, and the Neapolitan tales of Giambattista Basile (Naples, 1634–36), which are all fairy tales. Carlo Gozzi made use of many fairy tale motifs among his Commedia dell'Arte scenarios, including among them one based on The Love For Three Oranges (1761). Simultaneously, Pu Songling , in China, included many fairy tales in his collection, Strange Stories from
3179-427: A man-eating tiger with her own hand." In contemporary literature , many authors have used the form of fairy tales for various reasons, such as examining the human condition from the simple framework a fairytale provides. Some authors seek to recreate a sense of the fantastic in a contemporary discourse. Some writers use fairy tale forms for modern issues; this can include using the psychological dramas implicit in
3366-720: A mask on a human face, as in fables . In his essay " On Fairy-Stories ", J. R. R. Tolkien agreed with the exclusion of "fairies" from the definition, defining fairy tales as stories about the adventures of men in Faërie , the land of fairies, fairytale princes and princesses, dwarves , elves, and not only other magical species but many other marvels. However, the same essay excludes tales that are often considered fairy tales, citing as an example The Monkey's Heart , which Andrew Lang included in The Lilac Fairy Book . Steven Swann Jones identified
3553-494: A monumental work called Le Cabinet des Fées , an enormous collection of stories from the 17th and 18th centuries. The first collectors to attempt to preserve not only the plot and characters of the tale, but also the style in which they were told, was the Brothers Grimm , collecting German fairy tales; ironically, this meant although their first edition (1812 & 1815) remains a treasure for folklorists, they rewrote
3740-671: A movement concerned with reforming both education and literature for children. Its founder, Johann Bernhard Basedow , authored Elementarwerk as a popular textbook for children that included many illustrations by Daniel Chodowiecki . Another follower, Joachim Heinrich Campe , created an adaptation of Robinson Crusoe that went into over 100 printings. He became Germany's "outstanding and most modern" writer for children. According to Hans-Heino Ewers in The International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature , "It can be argued that from this time,
3927-543: A new sophistication to the historical adventure novel. Philip Pullman in the Sally Lockhart novels and Julia Golding in the Cat Royal series have continued the tradition of the historical adventure. An important aspect of British children's literature has been comic books and magazines . Amongst the most popular and longest running comics have been The Beano and The Dandy , both first published in
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#17327909510504114-451: A picture book aimed at children in which a princess rescues a prince, Angela Carter 's The Bloody Chamber , which retells a number of fairy tales from a female point of view and Simon Hood's contemporary interpretation of various popular classics. There are also many contemporary erotic retellings of fairy tales, which explicitly draw upon the original spirit of the tales, and are specifically for adults. Modern retellings focus on exploring
4301-450: A private walled garden growing roses. Lilias Craven died after an accident in the garden ten years previously, and the devastated Archibald locked the garden and buried the key. Mary becomes interested in finding the secret hidden garden herself, and her ill manners begin to soften as a result. Soon, she comes to enjoy the company of Martha, the gardener Ben Weatherstaff, and a friendly robin redbreast . Her health and attitude improve with
4488-897: A separate category of literature especially in the Victorian era , with some works becoming internationally known, such as Lewis Carroll 's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass . Another classic of the period is Anna Sewell 's animal novel Black Beauty (1877). At the end of the Victorian era and leading into the Edwardian era, author and illustrator Beatrix Potter published The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1902. Potter went on to produce 23 children's books and become very wealthy. A pioneer of character merchandising, in 1903 she patented
4675-482: A series of twelve books . The Golden Age of Children's Literature ended with World War I . The period before World War II was much slower in children's publishing. The main exceptions in England were the publications of Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne in 1926, the first Mary Poppins book by P. L. Travers in 1934, The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien in 1937, and the Arthurian The Sword in
4862-525: A survey of the British public by the BBC to identify the "Nation's Best-loved Novel" (not just children's novel). Based on a 2007 online poll, the U.S. National Education Association listed it as one of "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children". In 2012, it was ranked No. 15 among all-time children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal , a monthly with a primarily US audience. A Little Princess
5049-571: A technique developed by evolutionary biologists to trace the relatedness of living and fossil species . Among the tales analysed were Jack and the Beanstalk , traced to the time of splitting of Eastern and Western Indo-European, over 5000 years ago. Both Beauty and the Beast and Rumpelstiltskin appear to have been created some 4000 years ago. The story of The Smith and the Devil ( Deal with
5236-481: A time ", this tells us that a fairy tale or a märchen was originally a little story from a long time ago when the world was still magic. (Indeed, one less regular German opening is "In the old times when wishing was still effective".) The French writers and adaptors of the conte de fées genre often included fairies in their stories; the genre name became "fairy tale" in English translation and "gradually eclipsed
5423-439: A version intended for children. The moralizing strain in the Victorian era altered the classical tales to teach lessons, as when George Cruikshank rewrote Cinderella in 1854 to contain temperance themes. His acquaintance Charles Dickens protested, "In an utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respected." Psychoanalysts such as Bruno Bettelheim , who regarded
5610-446: A wheelchair would have been understood by Edwardian readers as a marker of both disability and social status. Elizabeth Lennox Keyser writes that The Secret Garden is ambivalent about sex roles: while Mary restores the garden and saves the family, her role in the story is overshadowed at the conclusion of the novel by the return of Colin and his father, which may be seen as a defense of patriarchal authority. Danielle E. Price notes that
5797-519: A wide range of topics including education, natural history, fantasy, mystery, and biblical narratives and is best remembered today for her Noddy , The Famous Five , The Secret Seven , and The Adventure Series . The first of these children's stories, Five on a Treasure Island , was published in 1942. In the 1950s, the book market in Europe began to recover from the effects of the two world wars. An informal literary discussion group associated with
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5984-864: A wide range of works, including acknowledged classics of world literature , picture books and easy-to-read stories written exclusively for children, and fairy tales , lullabies , fables , folk songs , and other primarily orally transmitted materials or more specifically defined as fiction , non-fiction , poetry , or drama intended for and used by children and young people. One writer on children's literature defines it as "all books written for children, excluding works such as comic books , joke books, cartoon books , and non-fiction works that are not intended to be read from front to back, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference materials". However, others would argue that children's comics should also be included: "Children's Literature studies has traditionally treated comics fitfully and superficially despite
6171-539: A world where all the fairy tales take place, and the characters are aware of their role in the story, such as in the film series Shrek . Other authors may have specific motives, such as multicultural or feminist reevaluations of predominantly Eurocentric masculine-dominated fairy tales, implying critique of older narratives. The figure of the damsel in distress has been particularly attacked by many feminist critics. Examples of narrative reversal rejecting this figure include The Paperbag Princess by Robert Munsch ,
6358-405: Is a fairytale? I should reply, Read Undine : that is a fairytale ... of all fairytales I know, I think Undine the most beautiful. As Stith Thompson points out, talking animals and the presence of magic seem to be more common to the fairy tale than fairies themselves. However, the mere presence of animals that talk does not make a tale a fairy tale, especially when the animal is clearly
6545-646: Is abandonment followed by fostering, as in the life of Mowgli , echoing Kipling's own childhood. In the latter years of the 19th century, precursors of the modern picture book were illustrated books of poems and short stories produced by English illustrators Randolph Caldecott , Walter Crane , and Kate Greenaway . These had a larger proportion of pictures to words than earlier books, and many of their pictures were in colour. Some British artists made their living illustrating novels and children's books, among them Arthur Rackham , Cicely Mary Barker , W. Heath Robinson , Henry J. Ford , John Leech , and George Cruikshank . In
6732-421: Is added and rules for processing are formed solely by one's sensory experiences. A corollary of this doctrine was that the mind of the child was born blank and that it was the duty of the parents to imbue the child with correct notions. Locke himself emphasized the importance of providing children with "easy pleasant books" to develop their minds rather than using force to compel them: "Children may be cozen'd into
6919-597: Is an adaptation of the myth of Blodeuwedd from the Mabinogion , set in modern Wales – it won Garner the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association , recognising the year's best children's book by a British author. Mary Norton wrote The Borrowers (1952), featuring tiny people who borrow from humans. Dodie Smith 's The Hundred and One Dalmatians was published in 1956. Philippa Pearce 's Tom's Midnight Garden (1958) has Tom opening
7106-474: Is an epic trilogy of fantasy novels consisting of Northern Lights (1995, published as The Golden Compass in North America), The Subtle Knife (1997), and The Amber Spyglass (2000). It follows the coming of age of two children, Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry, as they wander through a series of parallel universes. The three novels have won a number of awards, most notably the 2001 Whitbread Book of
7293-448: Is arranged so that a line of the text also serves as a caption to a picture. Upon its publication in novel format, The Secret Garden garnered largely warm reviews from literary critics, and sold well, with a second printing announced within a month after the novel's release. In general, it was seen as an enjoyable novel, and was reviewed within the context of Burnett's previous works, including Little Lord Fauntleroy . It sold well during
7480-451: Is best known today. The Brothers Grimm titled their collection Children's and Household Tales and rewrote their tales after complaints that they were not suitable for children. In the modern era, fairy tales were altered so that they could be read to children. The Brothers Grimm concentrated mostly on sexual references; Rapunzel , in the first edition, revealed the prince's visits by asking why her clothing had grown tight, thus letting
7667-406: Is in its essence only one aspect of the collective unconscious as well as always representing also the whole collective unconscious. Other famous people commented on the importance of fairy tales, especially for children. For example, G. K. Chesterton argued that "Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child
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7854-409: Is its own best explanation; that is, its meaning is contained in the totality of its motifs connected by the thread of the story. [...] Every fairy tale is a relatively closed system compounding one essential psychological meaning which is expressed in a series of symbolical pictures and events and is discoverable in these". "I have come to the conclusion that all fairy tales endeavour to describe one and
8041-414: Is largely absent. Burnett herself was aware of the similarities, remarking in a letter that Ella Hepworth Dixon had described it as a children's version of Jane Eyre . Scholar Gretchen V. Rector has examined the author's manuscript of The Secret Garden , which she describes as "the only record of the novel's development". Eighty of the first hundred pages of the manuscript are written in black ink, while
8228-484: Is listed in ASSITEH/USA's International Bibliography of Outstanding Plays for Young Audiences . Multiple musical adaptations have been made. In 1986, there was The Secret Garden: A New Musical with music by Sharon Burgett and Susan Beckwith-Smith, lyrics by Sharon Burgett, Diana Matterson, Susan Beckwith-Smith, Chandler Warren, Will Holt , and book by Alfred Shaughnessy . Another version was released in 1987 with
8415-510: Is so little surviving information on the book's development. Firstly, Burnett's health faltered after moving to her home in Plandome, and her social excursions became limited as a result. Secondly, her existing notes about The Secret Garden , along with a portrait of her and some photographs, were donated by her son Vivian after her death to a lower Manhattan public school serving the deaf in remembrance of her visit there years previously, but all
8602-630: Is that the fairy tale has ancient roots, older than the Arabian Nights collection of magical tales (compiled circa 1500 AD), such as Vikram and the Vampire , and Bel and the Dragon . Besides such collections and individual tales, in China Taoist philosophers such as Liezi and Zhuangzi recounted fairy tales in their philosophical works. In the broader definition of the genre,
8789-584: Is what Mistress Mary thought when she bent down in the Long Walk and 'tried to make robin sounds'". Maytham Hall in Kent, England, where Burnett lived for a number of years during her marriage, is often cited as the inspiration for the book's setting. Biographer Ann Thwaite writes that while the rose garden at Mayham Hall may have been "crucial" to the novel's development, Maytham Hall and Misselthwaite Manor are physically very different. Thwaite suggests that, for
8976-557: The Jennings series by Anthony Buckeridge . Ruth Manning-Sanders 's first collection, A Book of Giants , retells a number of giant stories from around the world. Susan Cooper 's The Dark Is Rising is a five-volume fantasy saga set in England and Wales. Raymond Briggs ' children's picture book The Snowman (1978) has been adapted as an animation, shown every Christmas on British television. The Reverend. W. Awdry and son Christopher 's The Railway Series features Thomas
9163-471: The Bronze Age . Fairy tales, and works derived from fairy tales, are still written today. The Jatakas are probably the oldest collection of such tales in literature, and the greater part of the rest are demonstrably more than a thousand years old. It is certain that much (perhaps one-fifth) of the popular literature of modern Europe is derived from those portions of this large bulk which came west with
9350-564: The Crusades through the medium of Arabs and Jews. Folklorists have classified fairy tales in various ways. The Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index and the morphological analysis of Vladimir Propp are among the most notable. Other folklorists have interpreted the tales' significance, but no school has been definitively established for the meaning of the tales. Some folklorists prefer to use the German term Märchen or "wonder tale" to refer to
9537-469: The Renaissance , such as Giovanni Francesco Straparola and Giambattista Basile , and stabilized through the works of later collectors such as Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm . In this evolution, the name was coined when the précieuses took up writing literary stories; Madame d'Aulnoy invented the term Conte de fée , or fairy tale, in the late 17th century. Before the definition of
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#17327909510509724-409: The "purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious psychic processes" and "they represent the archetypes in their simplest, barest and most concise form" because they are less overlaid with conscious material than myths and legends. "In this pure form, the archetypal images afford us the best clues to the understanding of the processes going on in the collective psyche". "The fairy tale itself
9911-446: The 1740s, a cluster of London publishers began to produce new books designed to instruct and delight young readers. Thomas Boreman was one. Another was Mary Cooper , whose two-volume Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book (1744) is the first known nursery rhyme collection. But the most celebrated of these pioneers is John Newbery , whose first book for the entertainment of children was A Little Pretty Pocket-Book ." Widely considered
10098-470: The 17th century, a passion for the conversational parlour game based on the plots of old folk tales swept through the salons. Each salonnière was called upon to retell an old tale or rework an old theme, spinning clever new stories that not only showcased verbal agility and imagination but also slyly commented on the conditions of aristocratic life. Great emphasis was placed on a mode of delivery that seemed natural and spontaneous. The decorative language of
10285-474: The 1880s, with her most notable book at the time being her sentimental novel Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886). Little Lord Fauntleroy was a "literary sensation" in both the United States and Europe, and sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Prior to The Secret Garden , she had also written another notable work of children's fiction, A Little Princess (1905), which had begun as a story published in
10472-674: The 1890s, some of the best known fairy tales from England were compiled in Joseph Jacobs ' English Fairy Tales , including Jack and the Beanstalk , Goldilocks and the Three Bears , The Three Little Pigs , Jack the Giant Killer and Tom Thumb . The Kailyard School of Scottish writers, notably J. M. Barrie , creator of Peter Pan (1904), presented an idealised version of society and brought fantasy and folklore back into fashion. In 1908, Kenneth Grahame wrote
10659-571: The 1911 Christmas season, becoming a bestseller in the fiction category, and placing on critical "best of" lists, including that of the Literary Digest and The New York Times . Its literary debut in a magazine for adults led the public to understand it as adult fiction; the book was marketed accordingly, "with some overlap in the juvenile market", which affected its reception by the public. Of this time, scholar Anne Lundin writes that " The Secret Garden struggled to assert its own identity as
10846-637: The 1930s he began publishing his Swallows and Amazons series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the English Lake District and the Norfolk Broads . Many of them involve sailing; fishing and camping are other common subjects. Biggles was a popular series of adventure books for young boys, about James Bigglesworth, a fictional pilot and adventurer , by W. E. Johns . Between 1941 and 1961 there were 60 issues with stories about Biggles, and in
11033-461: The 1930s. British comics in the 20th century evolved from illustrated penny dreadfuls of the Victorian era (featuring Sweeney Todd , Dick Turpin and Varney the Vampire ). First published in the 1830s, according to The Guardian , penny dreadfuls were "Britain's first taste of mass-produced popular culture for the young." Robin Hood featured in a series of penny dreadfuls in 1838 which sparked
11220-481: The 1960s occasional contributors included the BBC astronomer Patrick Moore . Between 1940 and 1947, W. E. Johns contributed sixty stories featuring the female pilot Worrals . Evoking epic themes, Richard Adams 's 1972 survival and adventure novel Watership Down follows a small group of rabbits who escape the destruction of their warren and seek to establish a new home. Geoffrey Trease and Rosemary Sutcliff brought
11407-466: The 19th century: that the folk tradition preserved fairy tales in forms from pre-history except when "contaminated" by such literary forms, leading people to tell inauthentic tales. The rural, illiterate, and uneducated peasants, if suitably isolated, were the folk and would tell pure folk tales. Sometimes they regarded fairy tales as a form of fossil, the remnants of a once-perfect tale. However, further research has concluded that fairy tales never had
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#173279095105011594-423: The American children's magazine St. Nicholas Magazine in 1887 and was later adapted as a play in 1902. Little is known about the literary development and conception of The Secret Garden . Biographers and other scholars have been able to glean the details of Burnett's process and thoughts on her other books through her letters to family members; during the time she was working on The Secret Garden , however, she
11781-518: The British edition by Heinemann with illustrations by Charles Heath Robinson . Several stage and film adaptations have been made of The Secret Garden . At the turn of the 20th century, Mary Lennox is a neglected and unloved 10-year-old girl, born in British India to wealthy British parents who never wanted her and made an effort to ignore her. She is cared for primarily by native servants, who spoil her and allow her to have free rein. After
11968-633: The Devil ) appears to date from the Bronze Age , some 6000 years ago. Various other studies converge to suggest that some fairy tales, for example the swan maiden , could go back to the Upper Palaeolithic. Originally, adults were the audience of a fairy tale just as often as children. Literary fairy tales appeared in works intended for adults, but in the 19th and 20th centuries the fairy tale became associated with children's literature. The précieuses , including Madame d'Aulnoy , intended their works for adults, but regarded their source as
12155-596: The English faculty at the University of Oxford, were the "Inklings", with the major fantasy novelists C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as its main members. C. S. Lewis published the first installment of The Chronicles of Narnia series in 1950, while Tolkien is best known, in addition to The Hobbit , as the author of The Lord of the Rings (1954). Another writer of fantasy stories is Alan Garner author of Elidor (1965), and The Owl Service (1967). The latter
12342-519: The French literary society, who saw them as only fit for old people and children. In 1658, John Amos Comenius in Bohemia published the informative illustrated Orbis Pictus , for children under six learning to read. It is considered to be the first picture book produced specifically for children. The first Danish children's book was The Child's Mirror by Niels Bredal in 1568, an adaptation of
12529-497: The Goblin and its sequel The Princess and Curdie , by George MacDonald , appeared in 1872 and 1883, and the adventure stories Treasure Island and Kidnapped , both by Robert Louis Stevenson , were extremely popular in the 1880s. Rudyard Kipling 's The Jungle Book was first published in 1894, and J. M. Barrie told the story of Peter Pan in the novel Peter and Wendy in 1911. Johanna Spyri 's two-part novel Heidi
12716-597: The Great wrote allegories for children, and during her reign, Nikolai Novikov started the first juvenile magazine in Russia. The modern children's book emerged in mid-18th-century England. A growing polite middle-class and the influence of Lockean theories of childhood innocence combined to create the beginnings of childhood as a concept. In an article for the British Library , professor MO Grenby writes, "in
12903-672: The Grimm brothers also contributed to children's literature through their academic pursuits. As professors, they had a scholarly interest in the stories, striving to preserve them and their variations accurately, recording their sources. A similar project was carried out by the Norwegian scholars Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe , who collected Norwegian fairy tales and published them as Norwegian Folktales , often referred to as Asbjørnsen and Moe . By compiling these stories, they preserved Norway's literary heritage and helped create
13090-519: The Grimms' tale appears to be the only independent German variant. Similarly, the close agreement between the opening of the Grimms' version of Little Red Riding Hood and Perrault's tale points to an influence, although the Grimms' version adds a different ending (perhaps derived from The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids ). Fairy tales tend to take on the color of their location, through
13277-512: The Norwegian written language. Danish author and poet Hans Christian Andersen traveled through Europe and gathered many well-known fairy tales and created new stories in the fairy tale genre. In Switzerland , Johann David Wyss published The Swiss Family Robinson in 1812, with the aim of teaching children about family values, good husbandry, the uses of the natural world and self-reliance. The book became popular across Europe after it
13464-723: The Russian Alexander Afanasyev (first published in 1866), the Norwegians Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe (first published in 1845), the Romanian Petre Ispirescu (first published in 1874), the English Joseph Jacobs (first published in 1890), and Jeremiah Curtin , an American who collected Irish tales (first published in 1890). Ethnographers collected fairy tales throughout
13651-533: The Scottish family theatre company Red Bridge Arts produced a retelling of the story set in modern-day Scotland, adapted by Rosalind Sydney. In 2024, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre produced a retelling of the story, adapted by Anna Himali Howard and Holly Robinson. In 1997, Focus On The Family Radio Theatre produced an adaptation in which Joan Plowright narrated as the older Mary Lennox. The cast included Ron Moody as Ben Weatherstaff. In 2021, two versions of
13838-573: The Stone by T. H. White in 1938. Children's mass paperback books were first released in England in 1940 under the Puffin Books imprint, and their lower prices helped make book buying possible for children during World War II. Enid Blyton 's books have been among the world's bestsellers since the 1930s, selling more than 600 million copies. Blyton's books are still enormously popular and have been translated into almost 90 languages. She wrote on
14025-607: The Tank Engine . Margery Sharp 's series The Rescuers is based on a heroic mouse organisation. The third Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo published War Horse in 1982. Dick King-Smith 's novels include The Sheep-Pig (1984). Diana Wynne Jones wrote the young adult fantasy novel Howl's Moving Castle in 1986. Anne Fine 's Madame Doubtfire (1987) is based around a family with divorced parents. Anthony Horowitz 's Alex Rider series begins with Stormbreaker (2000). Philip Pullman 's His Dark Materials
14212-624: The United States. Mark Twain released Tom Sawyer in 1876. In 1880 another bestseller, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings , a collection of African American folk tales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris , appeared. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a plethora of children's novels began featuring realistic, non-magical plotlines. Certain titles received international success such as Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (1883), L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (1908), and Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1869). Literature for children had developed as
14399-799: The Year prize, won by The Amber Spyglass . Northern Lights won the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction in 1995. Neil Gaiman wrote the dark fantasy novella Coraline (2002). His 2008 fantasy, The Graveyard Book , traces the story of a boy who is raised by the supernatural occupants of a graveyard. In 2001, Terry Pratchett received the Carnegie Medal (his first major award) for The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents . Cressida Cowell 's How to Train Your Dragon series were published between 2003 and 2015. J. K. Rowling 's Harry Potter fantasy sequence of seven novels chronicles
14586-616: The adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter . The series began with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 1997 and ended with the seventh and final book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 2007; becoming the best selling book-series in history . The series has been translated into 67 languages, so placing Rowling among the most translated authors in history. While Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe in 1719 (spawning so many imitations it defined
14773-675: The alphabet, vowels, consonants, double letters, and syllables before providing a religious rhyme of the alphabet, beginning "In Adam's fall We sinned all...", and continues through the alphabet. It also contained religious maxims, acronyms , spelling help and other educational items, all decorated by woodcuts . In 1634, the Pentamerone from Italy became the first major published collection of European folk tales. Charles Perrault began recording fairy tales in France, publishing his first collection in 1697. They were not well received among
14960-487: The author's obituary notices all remarked on Little Lord Fauntleroy and passed over The Secret Garden in silence. Burnett's literary reputation waned over the following decades, possibly as a result of biases towards books that garner a female audience. Despite being largely overlooked by literary critics and librarians, The Secret Garden enjoyed a considerable following among its readers. It continued to rank well on readers' polls for favorite stories. In 1927, it placed in
15147-457: The beginning of the mass circulation of Robin stories. Fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale , fairy story , household tale , magic tale , or wonder tale ) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre . Such stories typically feature magic , enchantments , and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cultures, there is no clear line separating myth from folk or fairy tale; all these together form
15334-516: The best of Burnett's children's books; Laski considered The Secret Garden to be the best of the three, with a capacity to reach thoughtful and self-reflective children. Other British literary critics and historians began to take note of the novel, including Roger Lancelyn Green and John Rowe Townsend . Thwaite's biography about Burnett, Waiting for the Party (1974), highlighted The Secret Garden for its depiction of unpleasant children that she felt
15521-490: The better, since those qualities appear later on in the narrative. The revival of the family and the home in these novels, according to Nodelman, "is carried to the extreme in The Secret Garden, " in which the garden's restoration and the arrival of spring parallel the emergence of human characters from the home, "almost as if they had been hibernating". Joe Sutliff Sanders examines Mary and The Secret Garden within
15708-504: The body of his children's books." Professor Grenby writes, "Newbery has become known as the 'father of children's literature' chiefly because he was able to show that publishing children's books could be a commercial success." The improvement in the quality of books for children and the diversity of topics he published helped make Newbery the leading producer of children's books in his time. He published his own books as well as those by authors such as Samuel Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith ;
15895-471: The book and lyrics by Diana Morgan . Thomas W. Olson wrote a version for the Children's Theatre Company in 1988; the play includes music by Hiram Titus, but is not a musical. However, the most well-known and successful musical adaptation is the 1991 Broadway musical with music by Lucy Simon and book and lyrics by Marsha Norman . The production was nominated for seven Tony Awards , winning Best Book of
16082-568: The booklets as well. Johanna Bradley says, in From Chapbooks to Plum Cake , that chapbooks kept imaginative stories from being lost to readers under the strict Puritan influence of the time. Hornbooks also appeared in England during this time, teaching children basic information such as the alphabet and the Lord's Prayer . These were brought from England to the American colonies in
16269-501: The bracing Yorkshire air, and she grows stronger as she explores the estate gardens. Mary wonders about the secret garden and about mysterious cries that echo through the house at night. As Mary explores the gardens, the robin draws her attention to an area of disturbed soil. Here, Mary finds the key to the locked garden, and eventually discovers the door to the garden. She asks Martha for garden tools, which Martha sends with Dickon, her 12-year-old brother, who spends most of his time out on
16456-504: The children's books in the library. The first motion picture version was made in 1918 by the Famous Players–Lasky Corporation , with 14-year-old Lila Lee as Mary and Paul Willis as Dickon. The film is believed lost . In 1949, MGM filmed the second adaptation , which starred Margaret O'Brien as Mary, Dean Stockwell as Colin and Brian Roper as Dickon. This version was mainly black-and-white, but with all of
16643-718: The children's classic The Wind in the Willows and the Scouts founder Robert Baden-Powell 's first book, Scouting for Boys , was published. Inspiration for Frances Hodgson Burnett 's novel The Secret Garden (1910) was the Great Maytham Hall Garden in Kent. While fighting in the trenches for the British Army in World War I, Hugh Lofting created the character of Doctor Dolittle , who appears in
16830-405: The children's window of tolerance". These fairy tales teach children how to deal with certain social situations and helps them to find their place in society. Fairy tales teach children other important lessons too. For example, Tsitsani et al. carried out a study on children to determine the benefits of fairy tales. Parents of the children who took part in the study found that fairy tales, especially
17017-435: The choice of motifs, the style in which they are told, and the depiction of character and local color. The Brothers Grimm believed that European fairy tales derived from the cultural history shared by all Indo-European peoples and were therefore ancient, far older than written records. This view is supported by research by the anthropologist Jamie Tehrani and the folklorist Sara Graca Da Silva using phylogenetic analysis ,
17204-399: The color in them, triggered their child's imagination as they read them. Jungian Analyst and fairy tale scholar Marie Louise Von Franz interprets fairy tales based on Jung's view of fairy tales as a spontaneous and naive product of soul, which can only express what soul is. That means, she looks at fairy tales as images of different phases of experiencing the reality of the soul. They are
17391-452: The common elements in fairy tales found spread over continents. One is that a single point of origin generated any given tale, which then spread over the centuries; the other is that such fairy tales stem from common human experience and therefore can appear separately in many different origins. Fairy tales with very similar plots, characters, and motifs are found spread across many different cultures. Many researchers hold this to be caused by
17578-490: The concept of childhood , that a separate genre of children's literature began to emerge, with its own divisions, expectations, and canon . The earliest of these books were educational books, books on conduct, and simple ABCs—often decorated with animals, plants, and anthropomorphic letters. In 1962, French historian Philippe Ariès argues in his book Centuries of Childhood that the modern concept of childhood only emerged in recent times. He explains that children were in
17765-457: The concept of childhood began to emerge in Europe. Adults saw children as separate beings, innocent and in need of protection and training by the adults around them. The English philosopher John Locke developed his theory of the tabula rasa in his 1690 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding . In Locke's philosophy, tabula rasa was the theory that the (human) mind is at birth a "blank slate" without rules for processing data, and that data
17952-527: The content (the weird adventures of a young girl in a fantasy land), but also the origin of the tales as both are dedicated and given to a daughter of the author's friends. The shift to a modern genre of children's literature occurred in the mid-19th century; didacticism of a previous age began to make way for more humorous, child-oriented books, more attuned to the child's imagination. The availability of children's literature greatly increased as well, as paper and printing became widely available and affordable,
18139-407: The context of postcolonialism , Jerry Phillips writes that the novel "is not so much a discourse on the end of empire as an embryonic commentary on the possibility of blowback". At the time Burnett began working on The Secret Garden , she had already established a literary reputation as a writer of children's fiction and social realist adult fiction. She had started writing children's fiction in
18326-426: The context of the Victorian and Edwardian cultural debate over affective discipline, which was echoed in contemporary books about orphan girls. He suggests that The Secret Garden was interested in showing the benefits of affective discipline for men and boys, namely Colin who learns from Mary, understood as "the novel's representative of girlhood" and how to wield his "masculine privilege". The titular garden has been
18513-418: The conversations consisted of literature, mores, taste, and etiquette, whereby the speakers all endeavoured to portray ideal situations in the most effective oratorical style that would gradually have a major effect on literary forms." Many 18th-century folklorists attempted to recover the "pure" folktale, uncontaminated by literary versions. Yet while oral fairy tales likely existed for thousands of years before
18700-437: The creation of a number of nineteenth-century fantasy and fairy tales for children which featured magic objects and talking animals. Another influence on this shift in attitudes came from Puritanism , which stressed the importance of individual salvation. Puritans were concerned with the spiritual welfare of their children, and there was a large growth in the publication of "good godly books" aimed squarely at children. Some of
18887-503: The cruelty of older fairy tales as indicative of psychological conflicts, strongly criticized this expurgation, because it weakened their usefulness to both children and adults as ways of symbolically resolving issues. Fairy tales do teach children how to deal with difficult times. To quote Rebecca Walters (2017, p. 56) "Fairytales and folktales are part of the cultural conserve that can be used to address children's fears …. and give them some role training in an approach that honors
19074-408: The economy and concision of the tales. Originally, stories that would contemporarily be considered fairy tales were not marked out as a separate genre. The German term " Märchen " stems from the old German word " Mär ", which means news or tale. The word " Märchen " is the diminutive of the word " Mär ", therefore it means a "little story". Together with the common beginning " once upon
19261-433: The fairy tale Momotarō . Jack Zipes has spent many years working to make the older traditional stories accessible to modern readers and their children. Many fairy tales feature an absentee mother, as an example " Beauty and the Beast ", " The Little Mermaid ", " Little Red Riding Hood " and " Donkeyskin ", where the mother is deceased or absent and unable to help the heroines. Mothers are depicted as absent or wicked in
19448-403: The fairy tale is a distinct genre within the larger category of folktale, the definition that marks a work as a fairy tale is a source of considerable dispute. The term itself comes from the translation of Madame D'Aulnoy's Conte de fées , first used in her collection in 1697. Common parlance conflates fairy tales with beast fables and other folktales, and scholars differ on the degree to which
19635-655: The fairy tales served an important function: disguising the rebellious subtext of the stories and sliding them past the court censors. Critiques of court life (and even of the king) were embedded in extravagant tales and in dark, sharply dystopian ones. Not surprisingly, the tales by women often featured young (but clever) aristocratic girls whose lives were controlled by the arbitrary whims of fathers, kings, and elderly wicked fairies, as well as tales in which groups of wise fairies (i.e., intelligent, independent women) stepped in and put all to rights. The salon tales as they were originally written and published have been preserved in
19822-460: The first "English masterpiece written for children" and as a founding book in the development of fantasy literature, its publication opened the "First Golden Age" of children's literature in Britain and Europe that continued until the early 1900s. The fairy-tale absurdity of Wonderland has solid historical ground as a satire of the serious problems of the Victorian era. Lewis Carroll is ironic about
20009-766: The first famous Western fairy tales are those of Aesop (6th century BC) in ancient Greece . Scholarship points out that Medieval literature contains early versions or predecessors of later known tales and motifs, such as the grateful dead , The Bird Lover or the quest for the lost wife. Recognizable folktales have also been reworked as the plot of folk literature and oral epics. Jack Zipes writes in When Dreams Came True , "There are fairy tale elements in Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales , Edmund Spenser 's The Faerie Queene , and in many of William Shakespeare plays." King Lear can be considered
20196-527: The first instances of a story for children first appearing in a magazine with an adult readership, an occasion of which Burnett herself was aware at the time. The Secret Garden was first published in ten issues (November 1910 – August 1911) of The American Magazine , with illustrations by J. Scott Williams. It was first published in book form in August 1911 by the Frederick A. Stokes Company in New York; it
20383-405: The first modern children's book, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book was the first children's publication aimed at giving enjoyment to children, containing a mixture of rhymes, picture stories and games for pleasure. Newbery believed that play was a better enticement to children's good behavior than physical discipline, and the child was to record his or her behaviour daily. The book was child–sized with
20570-503: The forms of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella . Although Straparola's, Basile's and Perrault's collections contain the oldest known forms of various fairy tales, on the stylistic evidence, all the writers rewrote the tales for literary effect. In the mid-17th century, a vogue for magical tales emerged among the intellectuals who frequented the salons of Paris. These salons were regular gatherings hosted by prominent aristocratic women, where women and men could gather together to discuss
20757-467: The garden door at night and entering into a different age. William Golding 's 1954 novel Lord of the Flies focuses on a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempt to govern themselves. Roald Dahl wrote children's fantasy novels which were often inspired from experiences from his childhood, with often unexpected endings, and unsentimental, dark humour. Dahl
20944-403: The garden with Colin, and continue to encourage him to grow stronger and attempt walking. Together, the children and Ben conspire to keep Colin's recovering health a secret from the other staff to surprise his father, who is travelling abroad. While his son's health improves, Archibald experiences a coinciding increase in spirits, culminating in a dream where his late wife calls to him from inside
21131-424: The garden. When he receives a letter from Mrs. Sowerby, who advises him to come back to Misselthwaite, he takes the opportunity to finally return home. He walks the outer garden wall in his wife's memory, and hears voices inside. He finds the door unlocked and is shocked to see the garden in full bloom and his son restored to health, having just won a race against Mary. The children tell him the entire story, explaining
21318-460: The genre of fantasy, many works that would now be classified as fantasy were termed "fairy tales", including Tolkien's The Hobbit , George Orwell 's Animal Farm , and L. Frank Baum 's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz . Indeed, Tolkien's "On Fairy-Stories" includes discussions of world-building and is considered a vital part of fantasy criticism. Although fantasy, particularly the subgenre of fairytale fantasy , draws heavily on fairy tale motifs,
21505-819: The genre rather than fairy tale , a practice given weight by the definition of Thompson in his 1977 [1946] edition of The Folktale : "...a tale of some length involving a succession of motifs or episodes. It moves in an unreal world without definite locality or definite creatures and is filled with the marvellous. In this never-never land, humble heroes kill adversaries, succeed to kingdoms and marry princesses." The characters and motifs of fairy tales are simple and archetypal: princesses and goose-girls ; youngest sons and gallant princes ; ogres , giants , dragons , and trolls ; wicked stepmothers and false heroes ; fairy godmothers and other magical helpers , often talking horses, or foxes, or birds ; glass mountains; and prohibitions and breaking of prohibitions. Although
21692-427: The genres are now regarded as distinct. The fairy tale, told orally, is a sub-class of the folktale . Many writers have written in the form of the fairy tale. These are the literary fairy tales, or Kunstmärchen . The oldest forms, from Panchatantra to the Pentamerone , show considerable reworking from the oral form. The Grimm brothers were among the first to try to preserve the features of oral tales. Yet
21879-546: The history of European children's literature was largely written in Germany." The Brothers Grimm preserved and published the traditional tales told in Germany . They were so popular in their home country that modern, realistic children's literature began to be looked down on there. This dislike of non-traditional stories continued there until the beginning of the next century. In addition to their collection of stories,
22066-641: The history of their development is necessarily obscure and blurred. Fairy tales appear, now and again, in written literature throughout literate cultures, as in The Golden Ass , which includes Cupid and Psyche ( Roman , 100–200 AD), or the Panchatantra ( India 3rd century BC), but it is unknown to what extent these reflect the actual folk tales even of their own time. The stylistic evidence indicates that these, and many later collections, reworked folk tales into literary forms. What they do show
22253-500: The idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon." Albert Einstein once showed how important he believed fairy tales were for children's intelligence in
22440-417: The importance of comics as a global phenomenon associated with children". The International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature notes that "the boundaries of genre... are not fixed but blurred". Sometimes, no agreement can be reached about whether a given work is best categorized as literature for adults or children. Some works defy easy categorization. J. K. Rowling 's Harry Potter series
22627-453: The influences of Charles Darwin and John Locke. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are known as the "Golden Age of Children's Literature" because many classic children's books were published then. There is no single or widely used definition of children's literature. It can be broadly defined as the body of written works and accompanying illustrations produced in order to entertain or instruct young people. The genre encompasses
22814-404: The issues of the day. In the 1630s, aristocratic women began to gather in their own living rooms, salons, to discuss the topics of their choice: arts and letters, politics, and social matters of immediate concern to the women of their class: marriage, love, financial and physical independence, and access to education. This was a time when women were barred from receiving a formal education. Some of
23001-433: The items soon vanished from the archive of the school. Lastly, a few weeks before the novel's publication, her brother-in-law died in a collision with a trolley, an event that likely darkened the novel's publication. Burnett's story My Robin , however, offers a glimpse of the creation of The Secret Garden . In it, she addresses a reader's question on the literary origins of the robin that appears in The Secret Garden , whom
23188-413: The late sixteenth century. An early example is ABC-Book , an alphabet book published by Ivan Fyodorov in 1571. The first picture book published in Russia, Karion Istomin 's The Illustrated Primer , appeared in 1694. Peter the Great 's interest in modernizing his country through Westernization helped Western children's literature dominate the field through the eighteenth century. Catherine
23375-755: The latter may have written The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes , Newbery's most popular book. Another philosopher who influenced the development of children's literature was Jean-Jacques Rousseau , who argued that children should be allowed to develop naturally and joyously. His idea of appealing to a children's natural interests took hold among writers for children. Popular examples included Thomas Day 's The History of Sandford and Merton , four volumes that embody Rousseau's theories. Furthermore, Maria and Richard Lovell Edgeworth 's Practical Education : The History of Harry and Lucy (1780) urged children to teach themselves. Rousseau's ideas also had great influence in Germany, especially on German Philanthropism ,
23562-521: The literary forms, there is no pure folktale, and each literary fairy tale draws on folk traditions, if only in parody. This makes it impossible to trace forms of transmission of a fairy tale. Oral story-tellers have been known to read literary fairy tales to increase their own stock of stories and treatments. The oral tradition of the fairy tale came long before the written page. Tales were told or enacted dramatically, rather than written down, and handed down from generation to generation. Because of this,
23749-523: The literature of preliterate societies. Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends (which generally involve belief in the veracity of the events described) and explicit moral tales, including beast fables . Prevalent elements include dragons , dwarfs , elves , fairies , giants , gnomes , goblins , griffins , merfolk , monsters , monarchy , pixies , talking animals , trolls , unicorns , witches , wizards , magic , and enchantments . In less technical contexts,
23936-522: The mid-seventeenth century. The first such book was a catechism for children, written in verse by the Puritan John Cotton . Known as Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes , it was published in 1646, appearing both in England and Boston . Another early book, The New England Primer , was in print by 1691 and used in schools for 100 years. The primer begins with "The young Infant's or Child's morning Prayer" and evening prayer. It then shows
24123-424: The moor, Dickon and his animals, and the secret garden. Mary eventually confides to Colin that she has access to the secret garden, and he asks to see it. Colin is put into his wheelchair and brought outside into the secret garden. It is the first time he has been outdoors for several years. With Mary and Dickon's help and encouragement, and absorbing the beneficial effects of the growing garden, he begins to open up to
24310-421: The moors. Mary and Dickon take a liking to each other, as Dickon has a kind way with animals and a good nature. Eager to absorb his gardening knowledge, Mary tells him about the secret garden. One night, Mary hears the cries once more and decides to follow them through the house. She is startled to find a boy of her age named Colin, who lives in a hidden bedroom. She soon discovers that they are cousins—Colin being
24497-458: The more general term folk tale that covered a wide variety of oral tales". Jack Zipes also attributes this shift to changing sociopolitical conditions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that led to the trivialization of these stories by the upper classes. Roots of the genre come from different oral stories passed down in European cultures. The genre was first marked out by writers of
24684-405: The most gifted women writers of the period came out of these early salons (such as Madeleine de Scudéry and Madame de Lafayette ), which encouraged women's independence and pushed against the gender barriers that defined their lives. The salonnières argued particularly for love and intellectual compatibility between the sexes, opposing the system of arranged marriages. Sometime in the middle of
24871-500: The most popular contemporary versions of tales like " Rapunzel ", " Snow White ", " Cinderella " and " Hansel and Gretel ", however, some lesser known tales or variants such as those found in volumes edited by Angela Carter and Jane Yolen depict mothers in a more positive light. Carter's protagonist in The Bloody Chamber is an impoverished piano student married to a Marquis who was much older than herself to "banish
25058-535: The most popular works were by James Janeway , but the most enduring book from this movement, still read today, especially in modernised versions, is The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) by John Bunyan . Chapbooks , pocket-sized pamphlets that were often folded instead of being stitched, were published in Britain; illustrated by woodblock printing , these inexpensive booklets reprinted popular ballads , historical re-tellings, and folk tales. Though not specifically published for children at this time, young people enjoyed
25245-505: The narrative is perceived both by teller and hearers as being grounded in historical truth. However, unlike legends and epics , fairy tales usually do not contain more than superficial references to religion and to actual places, people, and events; they take place " once upon a time " rather than in actual times. Fairy tales occur both in oral and in literary form ( literary fairy tale ); the name "fairy tale" (" conte de fées " in French)
25432-450: The novel deals with "the thorny issues of sex, class, and imperialism". She writes how Mary's development in the novel parallels "the steps of nineteenth-century garden theorists in their plans for the perfect garden", with Mary ultimately turning into "a girl who, like the ideal garden, can provide both beauty and comfort, and who can cultivate her male cousin, the young patriarch-in-training". In his examination of The Secret Garden within
25619-551: The novel was written by Chihiro Kurihara and illustrated by You Shiina and was released in October 2012 through Tsubasa Bunko. Children%27s novel Children's literature can be traced to traditional stories like fairy tales , which have only been identified as children's literature since the eighteenth century, and songs, part of a wider oral tradition , which adults shared with children before publishing existed. The development of early children's literature, before printing
25806-641: The novel, or in later editions. Susan Sowerby is initially introduced to the readers as a deceased character, with her daughter Martha perhaps intended to fill her role in the story; Burnett, however, changed her mind about Susan Sowerby, writing her as a living character a few pages later and crossing out the announcement of her death. Additionally, Dickon in the manuscript was physically disabled and used crutches to move around, perhaps drawing on Burnett's recollections of her first husband, Dr. Swan Burnett, and his physical disability. Burnett later removed references to Dickon's disability. The Secret Garden may be one of
25993-410: The opening of Children's Literature: A Reader's History from Aesop to Harry Potter , says, "This book presents a history of what children have heard and read.... The history I write of is a history of reception ." Early children's literature consisted of spoken stories, songs, and poems, used to educate, instruct, and entertain children. It was only in the eighteenth century, with the development of
26180-521: The past not considered as greatly different from adults and were not given significantly different treatment. As evidence for this position, he notes that, apart from instructional and didactic texts for children written by clerics like the Venerable Bede and Ælfric of Eynsham , there was a lack of any genuine literature aimed specifically at children before the 18th century. Other scholars have qualified this viewpoint by noting that there
26367-410: The population grew and literacy rates improved. Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes appeared in 1857, and is considered to be the founding book in the school story tradition. However, it was Lewis Carroll 's fantasy, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , published in 1865 in England, that signaled the change in writing style for children to an imaginative and empathetic one. Regarded as
26554-530: The presence of fairies and/or similarly mythical beings (e.g., elves , goblins , trolls , giants, huge monsters, or mermaids) should be taken as a differentiator. Vladimir Propp , in his Morphology of the Folktale , criticized the common distinction between "fairy tales" and "animal tales" on the grounds that many tales contained both fantastic elements and animals. Nevertheless, to select works for his analysis, Propp used all Russian folktales classified as
26741-435: The presence of magic as the feature by which fairy tales can be distinguished from other sorts of folktales. Davidson and Chaudri identify "transformation" as the key feature of the genre. From a psychological point of view, Jean Chiriac argued for the necessity of the fantastic in these narratives. In terms of aesthetic values, Italo Calvino cited the fairy tale as a prime example of "quickness" in literature, because of
26928-435: The prim and all-out regulated life of the "golden" Victorian century. One other noteworthy publication was Mark Twain 's book Tom Sawyer (1876), which was one of the first "boy books", intended for children but enjoyed by both children and adults alike. These were classified as such for the themes they contained, consisting of fighting and work. Another important book of that decade was The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for
27115-474: The production of adventure fiction for boys. This inspired writers who normally catered to adult audiences to write for children, a notable example being Robert Louis Stevenson 's classic pirate story Treasure Island (1883). In the years after the First World War, writers such as Arthur Ransome developed the adventure genre by setting the adventure in Britain rather than distant countries. In
27302-462: The quote "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairytales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairytales." The adaptation of fairy tales for children continues. Walt Disney 's influential Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was largely (although certainly not solely) intended for the children's market. The anime Magical Princess Minky Momo draws on
27489-443: The reader felt "could not have been a mere creature of fantasy". Burnett reminisces on her friendship with the real-life English robin, whom she described as "a person —not a mere bird" and who often kept her company in the rose garden where she would often write, when she lived at Maytham Hall. Recounting the first time she tried to communicate with the bird via "low, soft, little sounds", she writes that she "knew—years later—that this
27676-416: The rest and subsequent revisions were made in pencil; the spelling and punctuation tend to follow the American standard . Chapter headings were included prior to the novel's serialization and are not present in the manuscript, with chapters in it delineated by numbers only. The pagination of the manuscript was likely done by a second person: it goes from 1 to 234, only to restart at the nineteenth chapter. From
27863-404: The restoration of both the garden and Colin. Archibald and Colin then walk back to the manor together, observed by the stunned and incredulous servants. In his analysis of the narrative structures of "the traditional novel for girls", Perry Nodelman highlights Mary Lennox as a departure from the narrative pattern of the "spontaneous and ebullient" orphan girl who changes her new home and family for
28050-495: The same psychic fact, but a fact so complex and far-reaching and so difficult for us to realize in all its different aspects that hundreds of tales and thousands of repetitions with a musician's variation are needed until this unknown fact is delivered into consciousness; and even then the theme is not exhausted. This unknown fact is what Jung calls the Self, which is the psychic reality of the collective unconscious. [...] Every archetype
28237-509: The sequences set in the garden filmed in Technicolor . Noel Streatfeild 's 1948 novel The Painted Garden was inspired by the making of this film. American Zoetrope 's 1993 production was directed by Agnieszka Holland with a screenplay by Caroline Thompson and starred Kate Maberly as Mary, Heydon Prowse as Colin, Andrew Knott as Dickon, John Lynch as Lord Craven and Dame Maggie Smith as Mrs Medlock. The executive producer
28424-442: The setting of The Secret Garden , Burnett may have been inspired by the moors of Emily Brontë 's 1847 novel Wuthering Heights , given that Burnett only went once to Yorkshire , to Fryston Hall . She writes that Burnett may have also taken inspiration from Charlotte Brontë 's 1847 novel Jane Eyre , noting parallels between the two narratives: both of them, for example, feature orphans sent to "mysterious mansions", whose master
28611-445: The simpler riddle might argue greater antiquity. Folklorists of the "Finnish" (or historical-geographical) school attempted to place fairy tales to their origin, with inconclusive results. Sometimes influence, especially within a limited area and time, is clearer, as when considering the influence of Perrault's tales on those collected by the Brothers Grimm. Little Briar-Rose appears to stem from Perrault's The Sleeping Beauty , as
28798-445: The son of Archibald Craven—and that he suffers from fevers and an unspecified spinal condition which precludes him from walking and causes him to be confined to bed. He, like Mary, has grown very spoiled, with servants obeying his every whim in order to prevent the frightening hysterical temper tantrums into which Colin occasionally flies. Mary visits him every day that week, distracting him from his troubles and despondency with stories of
28985-431: The spectre of poverty". The story is a variant on Bluebeard , a tale about a wealthy man who murders numerous young women. Carter's protagonist, who is unnamed, describes her mother as "eagle-featured" and "indomitable". Her mother is depicted as a woman who is prepared for violence, instead of hiding from it or sacrificing herself to it. The protagonist recalls how her mother kept an "antique service revolver" and once "shot
29172-723: The spread of such tales, as people repeat tales they have heard in foreign lands, although the oral nature makes it impossible to trace the route except by inference. Folklorists have attempted to determine the origin by internal evidence, which can not always be clear; Joseph Jacobs , comparing the Scottish tale The Ridere of Riddles with the version collected by the Brothers Grimm, The Riddle , noted that in The Ridere of Riddles one hero ends up polygamously married, which might point to an ancient custom, but in The Riddle ,
29359-464: The stories printed under the Grimm name have been considerably reworked to fit the written form. Literary fairy tales and oral fairy tales freely exchanged plots, motifs, and elements with one another and with the tales of foreign lands. The literary fairy tale came into fashion during the 17th century, developed by aristocratic women as a parlour game. This, in turn, helped to maintain the oral tradition. According to Jack Zipes , "The subject matter of
29546-421: The story, adapted into graphic novels, were released. The first, released on June 15, was The Secret Garden: A Graphic Novel , with story by Mariah Marsden and illustrations by Hanna Luechtefeld. The second, released on October 19, was a modern retelling by Ivy Noelle Weir, The Secret Garden on 81st Street , following the same vein as the author's previous Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy . A Japanese-language adaptation of
29733-456: The story, as when Robin McKinley retold Donkeyskin as the novel Deerskin , with emphasis on the abusive treatment the father of the tale dealt to his daughter. Sometimes, especially in children's literature, fairy tales are retold with a twist simply for comic effect, such as The Stinky Cheese Man by Jon Scieszka and The ASBO Fairy Tales by Chris Pilbeam. A common comic motif is
29920-410: The subject of much scholarly discussion. Phyllis Bixler Koppes writes that The Secret Garden makes use of the fairy tale , the exemplum , and the pastoral literary genres, which lends the novel a deeper "thematic development and symbolic resonance" than Burnett's earlier children's novels which only used elements from the first two traditions. She describes the garden as "the central georgic trope,
30107-443: The tale through use of the erotic, explicit sexuality, dark and/or comic themes, female empowerment, fetish and BDSM , multicultural, and heterosexual characters. Cleis Press has released several fairy tale-themed erotic anthologies, including Fairy Tale Lust , Lustfully Ever After , and A Princess Bound . It may be hard to lay down the rule between fairy tales and fantasies that use fairy tale motifs, or even whole plots, but
30294-469: The tales in later editions to make them more acceptable, which ensured their sales and the later popularity of their work. Such literary forms did not merely draw from the folktale, but also influenced folktales in turn. The Brothers Grimm rejected several tales for their collection, though told orally to them by Germans, because the tales derived from Perrault, and they concluded they were thereby French and not German tales; an oral version of " Bluebeard "
30481-403: The tales that servants, or other women of lower class, would tell to children. Indeed, a novel of that time, depicting a countess's suitor offering to tell such a tale, has the countess exclaim that she loves fairy tales as if she were still a child. Among the late précieuses , Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont redacted a version of Beauty and the Beast for children, and it is her tale that
30668-452: The term is also used to describe something blessed with unusual happiness, as in "fairy-tale ending" (a happy ending ) or "fairy-tale romance ". Colloquially, the term "fairy tale" or "fairy story" can also mean any far-fetched story or tall tale ; it is used especially to describe any story that not only not true, but also could not possibly be true. Legends are perceived as real within their culture; fairy tales may merge into legends, where
30855-420: The title page, Rector surmises that the novel's first title was Mary, Mary quite Contrary , later changed to its working title of Mistress Mary . Mary herself is originally nine in the manuscript, only to be aged up a year in a revision, perhaps to highlight the "convergent paths" of Mary, Colin, and the garden itself; however, this revision was not reflected in either the British or the American first editions of
31042-552: The top fifteen favorite books of female Youth Companion readers, and in the 1960s, the readers of The New York Times ranked The Secret Garden as one of the best children's books. Surveys of adult readers in the 1970s and 1980s show that the novel was a frequent childhood favorite, especially for women. Burnett's literary reputation underwent a critical resurgence in the 1950s. Marghanita Laski 's Mrs Ewing, Mrs Molesworth and Mrs Hodgson Burnett (1951) described The Secret Garden , A Little Princess , and Little Lord Fauntleroy as
31229-477: The tradition of literary fairy tales. Andersen's work sometimes drew on old folktales, but more often deployed fairytale motifs and plots in new tales. MacDonald incorporated fairytale motifs both in new literary fairy tales, such as The Light Princess , and in works of the genre that would become fantasy, as in The Princess and the Goblin or Lilith . Two theories of origins have attempted to explain
31416-528: The unifying symbol of rebirth in Burnett's novel". Madelon S. Gohlke understands the titular garden as "both the scene of a tragedy, resulting in the near destruction of a family", as well as the site of its regeneration and restoration. Alexandra Valint suggests that most of the novel's depictions of disability coincide with the stereotypical view of people with disabilities as unhappy, helpless, and less independent than people without disabilities. Colin's use of
31603-417: The witch deduce that she was pregnant, but in subsequent editions carelessly revealed that it was easier to pull up the prince than the witch. On the other hand, in many respects, violence—particularly when punishing villains—was increased. Other, later, revisions cut out violence; J. R. R. Tolkien noted that The Juniper Tree often had its cannibalistic stew cut out in
31790-457: The world around him and finds renewed hope for his future. While in the garden, the children look up to see Ben Weatherstaff looking over the wall on a ladder. Startled to find the children in the secret garden, he admits that he believed Colin to be "a cripple." Angry at being called "crippled," Colin rises shakily from his chair and finds that he can stand on his legs, albeit they are weak from long disuse. Mary and Dickon spend almost every day in
31977-605: The world, finding similar tales in Africa, the Americas, and Australia; Andrew Lang was able to draw on not only the written tales of Europe and Asia, but those collected by ethnographers, to fill his "coloured" fairy books series . They also encouraged other collectors of fairy tales, as when Yei Theodora Ozaki created a collection, Japanese Fairy Tales (1908), after encouragement from Lang. Simultaneously, writers such as Hans Christian Andersen and George MacDonald continued
32164-565: Was Francis Ford Coppola . A 2017 production by Dogwood Motion Picture Company is available on the BYUtv Network. A science fiction adaptation in the Victorian style, it was filmed, directed and written for the screen by Owen Smith. The 2020 film version from Heyday Films and StudioCanal is directed by Marc Munden with a screenplay by Jack Thorne . Dorothea Brooking adapted the book for BBC television on several occasions;in 1952, 1960 and 1975. Hallmark Hall of Fame filmed
32351-452: Was a literature designed to convey the values, attitudes, and information necessary for children within their cultures, such as the Play of Daniel from the twelfth century. Pre-modern children's literature, therefore, tended to be of a didactic and moralistic nature, with the purpose of conveying conduct -related, educational and religious lessons. During the seventeenth century,
32538-580: Was also published that year by William Heinemann in London, illustrated by Charles Robinson . Its copyright expired in the US in 1986, and in most other parts of the world in 1995, placing the book in the public domain . As a result, several abridged and unabridged editions were published in the late 1980s and early 1990s, such as a full-colour illustrated edition from David R. Godine, Publisher in 1989. Inga Moore 's abridged edition of 2008, illustrated by her,
32725-619: Was directed by Tameo Kohanawa and written by Kaoru Umeno. This anime is sometimes mistakenly assumed to be related to the popular dorama series Himitsu no Hanazono . It is unavailable in English language, but has been dubbed into several other languages including: Arabic , Spanish , Italian , Polish and Tagalog . Stage adaptations of the book include a Theatre for Young Audiences version written in 1991 by Pamela Sterling of Arizona State University . This won an American Alliance for Theater and Education "Distinguished New Play" award and
32912-511: Was first ascribed to them by Madame d'Aulnoy in the late 17th century. Many of today's fairy tales have evolved from centuries-old stories that have appeared, with variations, in multiple cultures around the world. The history of the fairy tale is particularly difficult to trace because only the literary forms can survive. Still, according to researchers at universities in Durham and Lisbon , such stories may date back thousands of years, some to
33099-1015: Was inspired to write Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), featuring the eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka , having grown up near two chocolate makers in England who often tried to steal trade secrets by sending spies into the other's factory. His other works include James and the Giant Peach (1961), Fantastic Mr. Fox (1970), The BFG (1982), The Witches (1983), and Matilda (1988). Starting in 1958, Michael Bond published more than twenty humorous stories about Paddington Bear . Boarding schools in literature are centred on older pre-adolescent and adolescent school life, and are most commonly set in English boarding schools . Popular school stories from this period include Ronald Searle 's comic St Trinian's (1949–1953) and his illustrations for Geoffrey Willans 's Molesworth series, Jill Murphy 's The Worst Witch , and
33286-452: Was invented, is difficult to trace. Even after printing became widespread, many classic "children's" tales were originally created for adults and later adapted for a younger audience. Since the fifteenth century much literature has been aimed specifically at children, often with a moral or religious message. Children's literature has been shaped by religious sources, like Puritan traditions, or by more philosophical and scientific standpoints with
33473-554: Was living near to them and thus did not need to send them letters. Burnett started the novel in spring 1909, as she was making plans for the garden at her home in Plandome on Long Island . In an October 1910 letter to William Heinemann , her publisher in England, she described the story, whose working title was Mistress Mary , as "an innocent thriller of a story" that she considered "one of [her] best finds". Biographer Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina offers several explanations as to why there
33660-579: Was much closer to contemporary ideas about how children behave. At the time that Thwaite's biography was published, children's literature was becoming a field of greater scholarly interest, and as a result, The Secret Garden began to garner more scholarly analysis. The Secret Garden became accepted as part of the scholarly canon of children's literature in the 1980s. In the twentieth-first century, The Secret Garden continues to be well regarded among readers. In 2003 it ranked No. 51 in The Big Read ,
33847-783: Was now an old friend of Mary's father, allowing Colin and Mary to begin a relationship as adults by the film's end. It was filmed at Highclere Castle , which later became known as the filming location for Downton Abbey . It aired on 30 November. In 2001, Hallmark produced a sequel entitled Back to the Secret Garden . A 1994 animated adaptation as an ABC Weekend Special starred Honor Blackman as Mrs Medlock, Derek Jacobi as Archibald Craven, Glynis Johns as Darjeeling, Victor Spinetti as Dr. Craven, Anndi McAfee as Mary Lennox, Joe Baker as Ben Weatherstaff, Felix Bell as Dickon Sowerby, Naomi Bell as Martha Sowerby, Richard Stuart as Colin Craven and Frank Welker as Robin. This version
34034-400: Was produced by Mike Young Productions and DiC Entertainment , and was released on video in 1995 by ABC Video and distributed by Paramount Home Entertainment . In Japan, NHK produced an anime adaptation of the novel in 1991–1992 entitled Anime Himitsu no Hanazono (アニメ ひみつの花園). Miina Tominaga contributed the voice of Mary, while Mayumi Tanaka voiced Colin. The 39-episode TV series
34221-536: Was published in Switzerland in 1880 and 1881. In the US, children's publishing entered a period of growth after the American Civil War in 1865. Boys' book writer Oliver Optic published over 100 books. In 1868, the "epoch-making" Little Women , the fictionalized autobiography of Louisa May Alcott , was published. This " coming of age " story established the genre of realistic family books in
34408-516: Was ranked number 56 and Little Lord Fauntleroy did not make the Top 100. Jeffrey Masson considers The Secret Garden "one of the greatest books ever written for children". In an oblique compliment, Barbara Sleigh has her title character reading The Secret Garden on the train at the beginning of her children's novel Jessamy and Roald Dahl , in his children's book Matilda , has his title character say that she liked The Secret Garden best of all
34595-414: Was thus rejected, and the tale of Little Briar Rose , clearly related to Perrault's " Sleeping Beauty ", was included only because Jacob Grimm convinced his brother that the figure of Brynhildr , from much earlier Norse mythology , proved that the sleeping princess was authentically Germanic folklore. This consideration of whether to keep Sleeping Beauty reflected a belief common among folklorists of
34782-503: Was translated into French by Isabelle de Montolieu . E. T. A. Hoffmann 's tale " The Nutcracker and the Mouse King " was published in 1816 in a German collection of stories for children, Kinder-Märchen . It is the first modern short story to introduce bizarre, odd and grotesque elements in children's literature and thereby anticipates Lewis Carroll's tale, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland . There are not only parallels concerning
34969-410: Was written and marketed for children, but it is also popular among adults. The series' extreme popularity led The New York Times to create a separate bestseller list for children's books. Despite the widespread association of children's literature with picture books, spoken narratives existed before printing , and the root of many children's tales go back to ancient storytellers. Seth Lerer , in
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