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- Title
The 'Wild West' in Twentieth-Century English Children's Annuals: Home on the Range?
- Authors
Farley, Pauline
- Abstract
English children's annuals developed as a genre during the late nineteenth century and contained short fiction, articles and illustrations. In what seems an odd pairing, the 'wild west' was a dominant trope in annuals. One of the ways in which children's cultural knowledge of the American west came about was through exposure to popular literature in annuals, most of which was written by English writers, for whom it seems the American west had a particular resonance. Why were twentieth-century British writers of this type of popular children's fiction so powerfully attracted to the 'wild west'? This essay argues that children's western tales provided opportunities to demonstrate white, western, and particularly English superiority, at a time of declining English world power. Class, race and gender ideology was transmitted easily in such stories for youthful, mostly uncritical readers. This essay explores the cultural significance of the strange pairing of the American 'wild west' and English children's annuals.
- Subjects
UNITED Kingdom; WESTERN stories; ENGLISH children's periodicals; SERIAL publications; CULTURAL education; DOMINANT ideologies; POPULAR literature; SOCIAL conditions in Great Britain; TWENTIETH century
- Publication
Limina, 2008, Vol 14, p27
- ISSN
1324-4558
- Publication type
Article