Child-Loving: The Erotic Child and Victorian Culture [Hardcover]

James Kincaid (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 8, 1992 | ISBN-10: 0415905958 | ISBN-13: 978-0415905954 | Edition: 1

The question "What is a child?" is at the heart of the world the Victorians made. Throughout the 19th century, there developed an image of the child as a symbol of purity, innocence and asexuality. Yet at the same time, the child could be a figure of fantasy, obsession, and suppressed desires, as in the case of Lewis Carroll's Alice or James Barrie's Peter Pan. This image of the child, as both pure and strangely erotic, is part of the mythology of Victorian culture. Built on a decade of research into literary, medical, cultural, and legal materials, "Child-Loving" traces the growth of Victorian - and modern - concepts of the body, the child, sexuality, and the stories we tell about them. The Victorians, Kincaid argues, viewed children in ways that seem to us now both complex and bizarre. But do we fare better today? While our culture recoils from the horror of child molestation, we offer children's bodies as spectacles in the media, giving children an erotic attention we wish to deny. "Child-Loving" writes a additional chapter in the history of the Victorian era.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Why are we obsessed by stories of child molesting by strangers or child care workers, despite the evidence that such events are very rare? The author (English, Univ. of Southern California) offers startling views on this and other issues concerning child sexuality. His material spans a number of disciplines, including 19th-century literature and child care books, modern social history, court transcripts, and sex manuals. While the book suffers from a surfeit of deconstuctionist verbiage, the author's wide-ranging scholarship and provocative ideas more than make up for the shortcomings. Recommended for most academic and research libraries and for larger public libraries that collect academic material for educated lay readers.
- Mary Ann Hughes, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"...a work that postmodern theorists and cultural theorists will wish to come to terms with.." -- Victorian Review

"Mr. Kincaid himself deserves the praise he bestows on the French historian Phillipe Aries; he has written 'the rarest kind of history...'" -- Walter Kendrick, New York Times Book Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (October 8, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415905958
• ISBN-13: 978-0415905954
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,566,190 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #98 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Movements & Periods > Victorian

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars some chapters difficult to understand, January 22, 2003

By 

Robertson Thomas (Hapcheon, Gyeongnam, South Korea) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Child-Loving: The Erotic Child and Victorian Culture (Paperback)

Many sentences are long, complex, and abstract.
By the time I get to the predicate, I've forgotten what the subject was.
You are welcome to read this book if you are a better reader than I am.