Moral tales, fictions of a didactic nature which became the most common CL genre in the early nineteenth century, were reprinted and had a wide readership throughout the Victorian age (Carpenter and Pritchard 1984, pp. 358-360; Roberts 2005, p. 361). Such tales were often opposed to fairy tales; as Carpenter and Pritchard (ibid.) explain, authors such as Maria Edgeworth and Trimmer advocated rational, realistic depictions and frequently expressed their disapproval of the more fanciful fairy tales. Edgeworth’s stories in The Parent’s Assistant (1796), Moral Tales (1801) and Early
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and entertaining and visibly aimed to transmit a moral message. The stories were popular during the nineteenth century and many children who would later become writers, including Potter, took pleasure in them (ibid.). Due to their overtly didactic nature, such tales were linked to educational concerns; they were also related to specific images of childhood, for example, the Evangelical, the Romantic and the socially-oriented. Thus, Carpenter and Pritchard argue that, as a consequence of the Evangelical revival, moral tales took on a more religious tendency, visible in Trimmer’s and Sherwood’s works. Nevertheless, as Briggs and Butts (1995) explain, changing attitudes towards children around the mid-century caused a change in the tone of moral tales, which became less reprimanding and instead offered inspiring child models, based on Romantic-inspired ideas of children’s natural virtues (pp. 130-133). Moreover, due to an increasing concern for the hardships of poor children, religious writers thematised this social reality in their works, encouraging sympathy for the plight of the poor and making such children exemplary figures, superior to the adults around them (ibid.).
Moral and religious writing focusing on the home and on the importance of the family from a spiritual perspective gave rise to the family story, which gradually became more preoccupied with social issues and the maturation process of the (usually female) protagonists. Such stories were mainly destined to be read by girls, while boys had their own “character-building” literature, such as school stories (Roberts 2005, p. 365; Carpenter and Pritchard 1984, p. 180). According to Roberts (ibid.), one of the early authors of family stories was Yonge. A follower of Keble, the Oxford movement leader, Yonge based her works on his ideals, namely, that people should strive to improve themselves spiritually and serve their communities (Briggs and Butts ibid. p. 134). Another author who focused on the middle-class family, without, however, including the girls’ maturation process, was Molesworth. Her family stories include Carrots – Just a Little Boy (1876), whose protagonist is the youngest sibling among many, protected by an affectionate sister from a persecuting older brother (ibid.). Carrots, illustrated by Crane, was one of Potter’s favourite books (Lear 2008, p. 33).
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the boys’ school story emerged against the backdrop of the social and educational developments in England at that time, such as an increase in the number of pupils and schools, and school reforms. As
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already mentioned, Arnold, the reformer of Rugby School, made a profound impression on one of his pupils, Hughes, who established the school story genre with
Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857). The story describes the protagonist’s maturation
into a responsible Christian, deals with relevant aspects of boys’ lives, such as adult authority, peer groups, and friendship, but also reveals negative aspects of public schools (Briggs and Butts 1995, p. 155; Carpenter and Pritchard 1984, pp. 531-533). Briggs and Butts (1995) state that, although such school stories were aimed primarily at boys, they were also read by girls. Yet, along with the development of girls’ secondary education in the second half of the nineteenth century, came a number of girls’ school stories. Meade’s A World of Girls: The Story of a School (1886) includes stories of upper-class girls who go to small boarding schools run by gentle headmistresses and focuses on relationships between the pupils. Her characters’ development includes intellectual pursuits, but is more oriented towards becoming wives and mothers, which, according to Briggs and Butts, may reflect the Victorians’ uneasiness with women’s desire to be educated and more independent (pp. 158-159). Brazil also wrote numerous girls’ school stories, among them Bosom Friends (1909) and A Fourth Form Friendship (1911). Her use of slang led to a ban being imposed on her works in several girls’ schools (Carpenter and Pritchard 1984, p. 81).
Another popular genre was the adventure story, for instance, Marryat’s Masterman
Ready (1841-1842), Mayne Reid’s Desert Home (1852), Ballantyne’s Coral Island
(1858) and Henty’s With Clive in India (1884) and With Buller in Natal (1901) (Briggs and Butts 1995, pp. 151; Butts 1995, p. 98; Carpenter and Pritchard 1984, p. 295). These stories of adventures in far-away places are clearly related to Britain’s overseas expansion. Briggs and Butts (1995) explain that, as the British Empire grew dramatically and news of imperialistic events was made available to the public, emigration to the colonies was a common phenomenon, and an empire-related career in trade, the army or public services was an option for Victorian boys. Besides advocating “honesty and loyalty, pluck and resourcefulness”, adventure stories had a particularly imperialistic ethos, in their “belief that the British possession of such virtues was unequalled, and that the British Empire was an unrivalled instrument for harmony and justice” (pp. 149-151). There is no indication that Potter ever read adventure stories, but, given she had a brother to whom she was close, it is possible that she did.
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The Victorian and Edwardian periods also witnessed the increasing popularity of fairy tales and fantasy literature. Fairy tales were subject to criticism in the early nineteenth century, by those who feared their potentially negative effects on children. However, as Butts (1995) points out, despite the proliferation of moral tales, fairy tales survived into the century. This may be explained by an incipient relaxation in attitudes to children, which regarded children’s enjoyment more favourably than before (pp. 78, 86-87, 101). The widespread acceptance of fairy tales was encouraged by Taylor’s 1823 translation of the Brothers Grimms’ fairy tales,
German Popular Stories, illustrated by Cruikshank, and the work of Cole and Thoms
in the 1840s. Butts explains that Cole published The Home Treasury (1843 onwards) and Thoms, Gammer Gurton’s Story Book (1845 onwards), a series of visually pleasing booklets of fairy tales (pp. 88-90). Many translations or retellings of fairy tales enriched English CL from the 1840s onwards, such as those of Andersen’s works, Fairy Tales of All Nations (1849) and the anthologies of folk-tales published by Lang (Fairy Books, 1889-1910) (Bottigheimer 2004, p. 268; Briggs and Butts ibid. p. 140). Andersen’s works prompted other writers to take inspiration from traditional and nursery stories. For example, Ewing’s Amelia and the Dwarfs (in The
Brownies and Other Tales, 1870) is based on an Irish legend and Molesworth
adapted a Scottish story, The Brown Bull of Norroway (1879) (Briggs and Butts ibid. p. 138).
Fantasy literature was almost non-existent in the early nineteenth century, unless one includes the animal story, which was common at the time and may be considered a type of fantasy. However, from the 1820s, the Victorian taste for fantasy literature grew. Carpenter and Pritchard (1984, p. 181) and Butts (1995, p. 90) outline several possible causes for this, such as the renewed interest in fairy tales, the Romantic rejection of the dominance of rationalism, the popularity of Gothic novels and the constant popularity of animal fantasies. Ruskin’s King of the Golden River (1850) is one of the first examples of a fantasy written for a specific child, of which Carroll’s
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) is perhaps the most famous. Carroll’s best-
known fantasies, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (1871), were revolutionary in their use of nonsense. They also seemed to have been aimed at a double audience, children and adults, as they are entertaining, but, as Carpenter and Pritchard remark, can also prompt reflections on power relations
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between children and adults, and the rules of logic and language. Carpenter and Pritchard also note that fantasies sometimes included social considerations (Kingsley’s 1863 Water Babies and MacDonald’s 1871 At the Back of the North
Wind) or were written in parody mode (Thackeray’s 1855 Rose and the Ring and
Lang’s 1899 Prince Prigio). Nesbit’s work (The Story of the Treasure Seekers, 1899;
The Wouldbegoods, 1901) inspired many later fantasies by using a highly successful
formula, namely, the appearance of magic elements in the real world, with worrying but comic consequences (p. 181). According to Potter’s biographers, her childhood reading included Kingsley’s Water Babies and Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland, and she was particularly fascinated by Tenniel’s illustrations for the
latter. No doubt, both fairy tales and fantasies helped develop her imagination and thus contributed to her growth as a creative children’s writer.
Early twentieth-century fantasies reveal nostalgia for an idealised childhood, sometimes associated with a longing for a rural past, expressed by the trope of the garden or “the enchanted land”. This is visible, for instance, in Grahame’s Wind in
the Willows (1908), Barrie’s Peter Pan (1911) and Burnett’s Secret Garden (1911)
(Sampson 2000, p. 62). Cunningham (2006) agrees that late nineteenth and early twentieth-century CL is escapist in its focus on a “world of fancy” which is actually “an escape from the facts” (pp. 151-152). Potter’s tales, set in rural and natural environments, may appear to share this escapism. Nevertheless, as explained in Chapter 3, they combine fantasy with realism, for example, by depicting the harshness of nature.