The Captured World: The Child in Nineteenth-century Women's Writing in England

This book examines the portrayal of the child and childhood in the work of a wide range of 19th-century English women writers. It examines how the changing concepts of childhood correspond to the developing concern with education, religion, the "woman question" and the problems of the new industrial age. The influences of rationalism, Romanticism, the Evangelical movement and the increasing tendency to self-analysis and psychological exploration, are shown to have had a distinct impact on the way childhood was viewed and presented in women's literature throughout the century. The texts considered range from accepted classics, such as "Jane Eyre", "The Mill on the Floss" and "Wuthering Heights", to works like the Evangelical tracts, sentimental novels and domestic sagas.